Lord Ranma
by Chibi-Reaper
Summary: Ranma the General, anyone? Now a multicross, because I have no self-restraint to speak of.
1. Chapter 1

Lord Ranma

xxx

Ranma Saotome was a problem. It wasn't that he actively sought out trouble.... far from it, really. It was simply that he was a chaotic snarl of tangles in what was supposed to be a gentle, even weave. The only way to fix such snarls was to clip them out in their entirety, lest they ruin the whole cloth.

But the _real_ problem about Ranma, reflected the guardian of the Time Gates, was that unlike others, he simply refused to lie down and die!

It wasn't that she enjoyed killing people off.... Well, maybe there was just a touch of a certain guilty thrill, but that wasn't important. People dangerous to the flow of time usually at least did her the favor of staying dead.

It completely escaped her that everything she did was just making things worse, as the 'disaster' she'd started into this to prevent had simply been Ranma hurtling out of the air to land in a fresh crater in the middle of a battle between the Sailor Senshi and the random monster of the week. He'd summarily thrashed the creature and left. That was all that the Senshi had ever seen of him, and they'd never come into contact again.

But the mere realization that there were normal people out there who could take down monsters on their own had been enough to shake the Senshi somewhat.... and reduce the chances of Crystal Tokyo coming about by a full zero point three percent. It didn't sound like much, did it? But it was actually rather substantial.

The first attempt to remove him had been simple manipulation from afar of one of his rivals.... Mousse had realized that guns could be classified as weapons too. And as fast as Ranma was, he couldn't dodge the full spray of fire from two submachine guns. Mousse had left Saotome in a happy daze, to 'claim his Shampoo'.

Pity that Ranma had managed to hold out long enough to get to the hospital. It had taken some doing on the part of the emergency room staff, but he'd lived. And apparently woken up to the realization that his 'buddies' _really were_ doing their damndest to kill him.

In that timeline, certain regulars of Nerima slowly came up missing as the Yakuza expanded its territory, a shadowy new crime lord at their head. Oddly enough, not even Nabiki put two and two together to equate 'Ranma' with 'The Stallion'.

Hm. Again, Ranma ended up crossing paths with a monster of the week attack.... only this time he'd had a platoon of bodyguards with him in his 'official' capacity. A Youma aganst a squad of cops with nightsticks or tonfa was one thing. But as it turned out, enough bullets _would_ kill them. Especially if there was a thick enough spray to actually carve the thing to pieces. It probably would have regenerated from that eventually, as it was still screaming obscenities at the Yaks, but they'd swiftly gotten around to heaping the limbs up on the torso, dousing it with some spare gasoline from the back of one of the cars, and a lit match finished it off for good. Once it stopped screaming they went back to their business, ignoring the short skirted cheerleading brigade who had watched the whole thing in a surprised sort of awe.

Okay, try to fix this.... maybe if Nabiki actually _did_ equate.... oh dear. Oh that _is_ messy. A testament to why one doesn't try to blackmail the local crimelord. She'd thought her smarter than that. Alright, rewind..... back to the broken and bloody bullet ridden scene.

Just a bit of tampering and all phone lines in the area went out shortly before Mousse attacked. This time, Ranma bled out in front of screaming bystanders. Good. Aside from initial shock, nobody in Nerima really cared. Also good. Nodoka sent the fathers to have Ranma cremated, and they decided to half ass things once again, dropping the boy's heavy coffin off a cliff to sink slowly into the ocean as it floated away while they filled the urn with ashes from the leftovers of a nearby barbecue.

Hm. Okay. It's not like that was really unexpected, come to think of it. The problem was where Ranma's corpse had ended up. Through a bizarre series of ecological events, the coffin was still floating by the time it hit america and, through some unexplained twist, the river it hit began flowing backwards for a couple of days, landing it in..... Racoon city. Great.

Pluto watched on, morbidly fascinated, as the animated corpse of Ranma Saotome set itself up as leader of the shambling hoards and they systematically ate the world, leading it to its final death as just one more floating ball of rock as even the zombies starved to death over millenia. REWIND!

Okay, lets go a little bit further back. Hm. Love pill incident. That would do. Just make a careful switch so that he swallowed the lifetime pill instead of the instant one, and he'd spend the rest of his life in a backwater chinese village either married to a hideous old crone or mourning at her grave. Or he would have been, if the crone in question didn't later come across mushrooms from the forest of time. And..... yes, the Amazons were _warriors_ werent they. Once the duo of a youthened Cologne and a Ranma trained in absolutely everything they had to offer, rather than just the tidbits they'd been showing him as temptations got together... There was a decent chance of them taking over all of China after they dealt with their warring neighbors. A slightly smaller chance than that of them conquering all of Asia. And a slightly smaller chance of them using Asia as a springboard to conquer the world, one country at a time.

Hm. That won't do at all. No, it seemed she'd have to go back further. The first meeting at the Tendos? It only took a little bit for Akane to swing the table at a _slightly_ different angle... and Ranma's neck broke with a crack. He lived, but was consigned to a wheelchair for the rest of his life and was disowned by his father immediately after the prognosis was made. At this point, the art was his life, and he sank into a deep depression, ending in suicide. On an enormous scale. She was tempted, for a moment, to figure out where he'd gotten the nukes that had taken him out, and all of Tokyo with him. Sailor Senshi included. Bad timeline.... naughty.

She pondered a moment over Jusenkyo and the surrounding areas but, suprisingly, what curse he had and what Amazon was after him had very little relevance to the big picture. The line where he'd actually drowned in one of the springs was even worse, as there were soon close to a dozen part-time Ranmas mucking up the works. Bad Juju. There was a far too good chance of Crystal Tokyo turning into Crystal Nerima if things went much further down that route.

How about a little further back? She ignored the way the Time gates, sensitive instruments not meant to be used for such a long span of time and for such intensive work, were beginning to dim. She'd only be a few more minutes after all, now that she'd found this.... the Nekoken.

With a little bit of prodding, Genma was convinced that it would be a better idea to use alley cats than pampered housebreeds. With a little more, he went out of his way to look for the ones that were foaming at the mouth, or especially vicious. Needless to say, Chibi-Ranma came out of it with a whole lot more than a few light scars and some mental trauma. He lost one leg below the knee, a couple fingers, an eyeball, and an ear. The rest of his body was a patchwork of scars. Bad enough that he'd survived, but as he grew up he became one of the leading scientists of the time. Eccentric as he was. Sailor Moon only had a few days worth of fighting off youma before he came out with a line of affordable 'Youma-repellants', pendants that emanated cross-interfering waves of energy that the creatures would flee screaming and clutching at their heads to avoid. Another couple of weeks of study, and the police were outfitted with guns similar to those in Men In Black that wouldn't damage anything but Youma but would tear through even the thickest dark energy forcefield with ease. She recorded a few minutes of that timeline.... Jadite's face was hilarious, just before it melted off. But this timeline was still a loss. The police, with effective weapons, became so efficient in their jobs that not even Mercury was awakened.

Hmm. Little tweak here... oh, that was almost as bad. A master of sorceries instead of sciences. Ranma ended up going to war with the dark armies of Mettalia by.... summoning up his own dark armies to combat them. An acquaintance, Sailor Moon, suddenly wasn't seeing the world in black and white anymore. This new shades-of-grey mentality said very bad things for Crystal Tokyo. She nipped this one in the bud before it could start.

No, it looked like a murder in infancy was the only way to go, here. She tried having him run down in the street as he played with his ball. Through a freak accident, the ball cushioned him and he came through it without a scratch.

Poison his food. He threw it against a wall and was sent to bed early. Genma got extra helpings and was sent to the hospital.

Toss him out of reality entirely. He was back within a week. Try again. Back again. Maybe third time is the charm? No?

Hmm. The only thing she hadn't tried was throwing him through time. But he caused problems no matter _when_ he was as well. Then, after several weeks without sleep due to having to monitor the changes, and with small hairline cracks running through the time gates themselves, she hit upon the perfect time and place to put the brat.

The Dark Kingdom, just moments before Serenity sealed it away from the rest of the world. If she couldn't count on hundreds of thousands of slowly starving Youma to finish this thorn in her side off _somewhere_ along the course of the millenia, then what could she count on? She grinned in triumph, and passed out, many long hours taking their toll. Incidentally, the cracks in the Time Gates grew exponentially and began releasing colored smoke as the image within went black.

Unfortunately for Setsuna, this new timeline would be in effect for long enough to be as good as set in stone before she awoke and saw the havoc that had begun.

xxx

Under most circumstances, most youma wouldn't even stop to think upon finding a young child in a basket any more than Genma would spare a moment to consider an abandoned bottle of good sake. It would be down the hatch and no more thought to it unless indigestion set in.

However, this wasn't most circumstances, and Quartz wasn't most youma.

Having found the child in question, 'Ranma', according to the stitching on the blanket wrapped around it, only mere moments after the Dark Kingdom was sealed, Quartz was one of the few rank and file youma who had the mental faculties to consider that it may well be the only available source of life energy until whenever it was that Beryl and Metallia broke that seal and they could gather it from the flocks of humanity outside. As such, it was only natural to bring it to the attention of the Generals and the Queen immediately.

They, at least, could work magics to make the young human produce more life energy than was natural, and extend its lifespan by many orders of magnitude, in case the breaking of that seal took longer than expected.

xxx

Unofficially, the boy's status was that of the only available food source for a legion of youma. He was well aware of this, and as a matter of fact made a point of having every drop of life energy he could spare extracted, often, for his own safety if nothing else.

It wasn't that he didn't trust them... all right, it was exactly that he didn't trust the hungry youma. The less energy he had floating through his spiritual 'veins' at any given time, the safer he was, because none of them would take the risk of killing him for what would effectively be a spare mouthful of food, when as long as he was alive he would be producing more.

Officially, he was a fifth general of Queen Beryl's forces, despite still being fully human and not going through any dark conversions or such whatnot. What was quietly ignored, but universally known, was that he was actually a far better general than most of the others.

Mainly, that was because the generals and the Queen had all gone mad, to a greater or lesser degree. Apparently, being wrenched from the outside world and locked up in an expanse of eternal darkness and evil miasma hadn't exactly agreed with their psyche. That or, Ranma privately suspected, that Metallia creature was slowly warping their psyche, perhaps even unintentionally. The theory had merit, despite the fact that Ranma had never, and would never, voice it aloud... after all, the Queen had gone loopiest, fastest, and she was the one in the most direct contact with Metallia and Ranma, who'd only seen the being once, was still pretty much sane.

As far as he knew. It wasn't like he had a lot of basis for comparison, after all.

Of course, also hadn't ever really been 'outside', that he could remember, so it could also just be that he adapted easier, as this place was all he'd ever known.

Ranma's train of thought was interrupted as a sharp tug somewhere in the vicinity of his lungs notified him that the Queen desired an audience with him. Not being able to access the dark powers that the other generals could, he couldn't teleport, and so was forced to break into an undignified dash, shifting his sword awkwardly to keep it from bouncing at the back of his knees and possibly tripping him up.

He loved that chunk of metal, really he did, but sometimes it was _such_ a nuisance.

He paused outside the courtroom for a moment, straightening his uniform and quickly re-tightening the tie in his hair before he stepped through the door, ignoring the shadowy illusions that Beryl had erected one day in a fit of boredom as he knelt before her throne.

She frowned slightly at him, obviously displeased with the time it had taken him to arrive despite that she knew full well of his limitations, and continued waving her hands around that ridiculous prop she'd gotten somewhere. It had no magical power of its own, of course, couldn't even be used to store energy in case of a sudden need, and making it float all the time the way she did taxed her severely, but even so she'd casually butchered the only youma to ever so much as look funny at the thing in her presence. She was crazy, but she was powerful and crazy, so all her subjects simply followed her whims without question at this point.

"You have finally answered my summons."

"Forgive me, my queen. I spared a moment outside the door, that I would not offend your eyes."

She nodded somberly, uncaring as to whatever excuse he might have to offer, but in a genial enough mood to let it lie.

"The seal is breaking." She stated calmly, as though she wasn't dropping the most monumenous piece of news since... actually, Ranma couldn't recall any information this important. The youma had been slowly starving, even with what he could give, and if the seal broke then there was a whole world of walking food out there.

He remained silent, waiting for Beryl to either request something or state what she wanted. Punishment for speaking out of turn was never pleasant, and could become truly dire depending on her mood. Even so, it was slightly more than a minute before she continued.

"Tell me... what is your opinion on how we should proceed, once that seal is gone for good?"

Ranma hesitated.

"If I may ask... have the other generals already given their opinions?"

"Indeed. Jadeite believes that we should strike immediately to gather the energy we so desperately need."

"I see." Translated, that meant that all four of the generals had had the same idea, if different in the details, and Jadeite was just the first one to voice his plan. "I... do not disagree with that aim. However, the execution..."

Beryl arched an eyebrow at him, and Ranma fell silent, just in case she wanted to say something.

"Continue." She drawled idly.

"Yes... It has been a very long time since we were first sealed away. We may well have been forgotten. Even so, simply going out and draining people will draw attention towards us that at this point we can ill afford. I agree with the need for energy, however we must be subtle."

"The senshi died at our sealing!" Beryl snarled, obviously not liking the way the conversation was going. Ranma cringed slightly, sensing a lot of pain in his near future if he wasn't careful.

"Of course, yes. Still, it has been a _very_ long time. Even with the senshi dead, there is no assurance that there will be no opposition to us." Ranme said quickly, seeming to mollify the Queen somewhat. "Rather than focusing on gathering energy at the first available opportunity, information is what we need. If, of course, the opportunity to gather energy unnoticed should arise as well then so be it, but the priority must be on gathering information on what enemies there may be."

The Queen's frown grew more pronounced, but she was obviously considering his words.

"Very well... you have made a valid point. Jadeite will follow his plan, and you shall follow yours, and we shall see who is correct by the results."

Ranma bowed deeply and waited for the Queen to dismiss him.

xxx

Despite that Beryl had made it seem like the seal was going to poof away at any moment, it was nearly two months after Ranma's audience with her before it deteriorated enough to no longer be stable and collapsed entirely. Jadeite, naturally, immediately grabbed the first available youma that could disguise itself and rushed off to implement his plans and prove himself somehow better than the upstart.

Ranma was more careful in his selections, picking out two youma from those who were more loyal to him than the other generals. Admittedly, that left him a fairly large chunk to choose from, as the fact that he was less likely to execute his soldiers for failures or minor mistakes had gotten around.

Still, his selections were the cream of the crop. While Jadeite's selection could keep up its facade for a day or two, as was standard, Ranma's would be able to maintain their transformations pretty much indefinitely, so long as they had the energy available. They were reasonably powerful as well, but the important thing was that they could remain undetected as they carried out their activities.

Ranma was all set to leave... when he suddenly remembered that he couldn't teleport. On top of that, the exit from the Dark Kingdom led to a very cold place that seemed to be many, many miles away from any form of civilization. Nothing if not adaptable, he quickly hashed out a deal with Nephrite. Teleportation and the creation of a fixed portal in exchange for a favor of equal or greater value, to be repaid at a later date. After the agreement was made, it was only the work of moments before they'd arrived in the city Jadeite had targeted.

At first, Ranma had been uncertain about targeting the same city, but that was before he saw it. It was, in a word, huge... a towering mass of brick and mortar, metal and stone. There were so many people crammed into its boundaries that it fairly glowed to him, his eyes having become sensitive to human energies at some point. It was incredible... simply walking through a place where there were so many humans would be enough to slowly satiate even the hungriest of youma, if they could control themselves enough to keep from assaulting people in a feeding frenzy.

Nephrite disappeared to deal with his end of the deal... finding an out of the way corner where nobody would look and find a portal wasn't exactly going to be the simplest of tasks... leaving Ranma and his two servants to their own devices.

"Sandstone, Obsidian." He ordered. "Familiarize yourselves with the area, we rendevous back here in twenty minutes. Draw no undue attention to yourselves"

They nodded and left, leaving him alone to wonder once more at the teeming mass of humanity before him.

It wasn't long before Nephrite returned, handing him a sheaf of papers.

"You are now the proud owner of a small house just on the border between two sections of this city, complete with en suite bathroom, toilet, kitchen, spare bedroom, and a portal to the Dark Kingdom taking up closetspace." He said, smugly, as the youma began to return.

"Do I... want to know how you aquired these?" Ranma asked, flipping.

"Probably not. Just remember the favor you owe me... and count yourself fortunate that I won't call it in for the sort of things certain other generals of our acquaintance would."

Ranma nodded... in truth, that was exactly the reason he'd gone to Nephrite first. It was no secret that two of the generals were lovers... in fact, with how steadily more kinky, perverse, and exhibitionist their tendencies had begun you'd have to look a long time indeed to find anyone who wasn't aware that Kunzite and Zoicite were an 'item'.

An open item, apparently, given how often they tried to drag one of the other generals into their little games over the centuries. Becoming indebted to either one of them was simply the _last_ thing Ranma ever intended to do, preceded directly by plucking out his own eyes and jumping into an active volcano. If the lovebirds were still interested in what was left of him after that...

"One more word of advice to the junior general." Nephrite continued. "Jadeite is already working in what's apparently the Juuban district, and he's always been very... territorial. I'd suggest you look into other areas."

Nephrite tossed a folded up map, that Ranma somehow doubted had been paid for, and teleported away, leaving Ranma to revise his plans. The 'x' marked where his house was, according to the note. One side of that was Juuban district, which had been claimed by the senior general. The other was....

He folded up the map and tucked it away, resolving to investigate this 'Nerima' district.

xxx

A.N. Just because.

I've always held that the way the Dark Kingdom went about conquering the world really sucked. There are a lot of theories about WHY it sucked, and heres mine. The commanders in charge are, quite simply, nuts. Cuckoo. Rationally impaired. In dire need of a jacket with wraparound sleeves. In short, clinically insane.

They may not show it in battle situations, but their decisions definitely smack of either incompetence or insanity, and they did bring the entire moon kingdom place to its knees at one point. I find it simpler to believe that they just cracked somewhere between being imprisoned and breaking out.

And yes, if I write this, the generals and Beryl are going to get a heck of a lot of noncanon eccentricies.


	2. Chapter 2

Lord Ranma

xxx

It was only a bare day or so before Jadeite's little plan was foiled. Apparently, the Senshi that had died weren't exactly dead anymore. Sometime over the intervening span of time they'd been reincarnated... and just in time for them to be available to smack down Jadeite's swollen ego.

In the meantime, Ranma was discovering enemies of his own. The Nerima District Truancy Officers. Were he able to teleport or fly like the other generals, they would prove no obstacle at all. While limited to simpler modes of transportation...

Why ainchuu in school, boyo?"

Ranma had gathered enough information to know the general requirements of those who were the age that he appeared to be. Ranma had intended, upon this discovery, to quietly return to the Dark Kingdom and have his apparent age modified somewhat... not much, just a few years. Unfortunately, it hadn't been long after his discovery that he'd been discovered himself.

"I'm on vacation." Ranma lied carefully, hoping that would pass muster.

"'On vacation'... right in the middle of the semester, boyo? Come on.... wasn't born yesterday, lad. Let's get you in-"

He reached for Ranma's shoulder, and was intercepted midway as Obsidian clamped an iron grip around his wrist.

"You _will not_ touch my lord with your unwashed-"

"Obsidian! Stand down!" Ranma barked and, with a grunt of disgust, she released the officer to clutch his arm back to his chest and stare at her.

She had been so strong... and he'd felt so weak, suddenly, and even now he felt taxed.

"I must apologize, officer. My bo-... friends have a habit of reacting immediately when someonce perpetrates an action they interpret as either violent or an insult to my personage."

The gears in the policeman's skull were almost obvious in their turning, the sudden weakness completely forgotten. The not so accidentally dropped syllable had changed things... rather than thinking of the kid as just another hooky-player, he was now mentally reclassified as a spoiled VIP. That sort of thing demanded entirely different measures.

"Forgive me if I've interrupted your vacation, but if you would be so good as to come with me?" The suddenly painstakingly polite officer said.

xxx

"Jadeite. You have failed me."

"I... yes, my Queen. I have no excuse. I simply had not expected the arrival of a _Senshi_, of all things. However, she is alone, and barely effective. I shall destroy her should she interfere with my plans again, and they shall continue unabated."

"Perhaps. But tell me, Jadeite... why I should suffer a failure to live."

The general took a deep breath and carefully presented his secret weapon.

"Because, my Queen, there have been notable advancements in the confectionary industries since last we walked the earth."

The stage prop floating between Beryl's hands wobbled for a moment before she could bring it back under control.

"I, myself, had begun to forget the taste of processed cacao, mingled with milk-butters and sugar. These particular delights are wrapped around a small piece of fruit, marinaded in an exceptionally sweet wine and floating in a thick, heavy sugar-cream of some sort. I took the liberty of tasting one for myself, and it's really quite exquisite-"

Beryl snapped at that point and lunged, knocking the dark general ass over teakettle as she snatched the large, ludicrously heart-shaped package out of his hands, stage-prop forgotten somewhere on the ground next to her throne.

"Leave us!"

Jadeite was happy to oblige, as Beryl had already begun cooing softly at her prize, and he had no desire to witness the spectacle of gorging that would follow.

xxx

Ranma had no idea how he'd gotten here... the intervening span of time between now and following the policeman was something of a dull blur. Confusing. On the other hand, his youma were still at his sides, and that was something.

Though why he was so very intimidated simply by standing in front of a room of near-adults, he had no idea.

"Aheh... settle down class." The girl child at the front said, fingering a coin of some kind. Surprisingly, the class settled down immediately, and almost looked nervous. "Now, unusual as it is, we have a new student. Please welcome... er, Ranma?"

She seemed surprised at his name. Come to think of it, so did the rest of the class as well, but several seemed personally offended somehow, particularly the short-haired girl, who looked ready to explode, a young man with braided red hair and dressed in silk, and a girl who seemed to be attempting to pass herself off as male. Had language shifted so that his name was an insult of some kind?

"Yes... Ranma, no family name listed. And his uh... attendants? Sandstone and Obsidian?"

He could already see the students drawing incorrect conclusions about a great number of things, but mainly about his youma's names. Ironically enough, their coloration was exactly opposite what their names would imply... Obsidian having a pale and pearly skin tone, and Sandstone's skin seeming to have the sheen of the volcanic glass that the other was named for. He would have to find amusement in that somehow. Ah.. the child-teacher had requested he introduce himself. He could lie... but if the truth was outrageous enough, why bother? None of the humans would accept it anyway.

"Ah... As you have already been informed, my name is Ranma. I hail from a kingdom of eternal twilight that never sees the light of day, and greet you warmly as a representative of my homeland. As I am here for the purpose of cultural studies, however, I humbly request that you treat me as you would any other student."

He bowed formally at the waist, garnering a few hushed whispers from the class before the child-teacher glanced over it.

"I see." She said, plainly doubting the majority, if not all, of his introduction. "And your... friends?"

"Hm? My assistants? Sandstone..." He pointed her out, then swung his finger in the direction of the other. "... and Obsidian. Please note that they do not respond well to taunting, implyed threats, actual threats, jests about their names, idle chit-chat, attempted violence upon either themselves or my person, insolence, or blatant disrespect. I advise you on this matter for the sake of your health, and appreciate your understanding."

He could already see the foolish children dismissing his warning. Pity... he'd have to make sure his servants were aware that there would be no killing.

"Hmm... yes." He could see the child teacher scribble something that looked suspiciously like 'compulsive liar' onto her clipboard before popping a candy into her mouth, and found it privately hilarious, as the fact of the matter was that he was generally scrupulously honest, unless he had some reason not to be. "There is an open seat next to Gosunkugi-kun... I'm afraid that's the only-"

"Understood." Sandstone rumbled softly, a voice like cracked stone grinding against itself meaning that she seldom spoke at all, and rarely more than she had to. "We will stand."

They took up positions in the back of the classroom, eyes sweeping over the class. Most of them were immediately classified as no threat. The one Ranma was sitting next to was examined scrupulously before it was determined that he was definitely a student mage of some sort, albeit with horribly flawed and/or deficient instruction, and so was dubiously and hesitantly labeled a possible threat. The three who'd reacted most visibly to their Lord's name seemed to be producing well above the supposed natural limits of a human's life energy, most especially the redhead, whose fists were clenched.

They were mentally labeled as possible threats, and definite source of ready snacks, if that could be managed. Merely being in their general area was leaving the youma forced to regularly check to make sure they hadn't begun salivating and not notice. Because, of course, drooling like they'd wandered into a free buffet would go over _so_ well with the humans they were trying to subtly infiltrate.

The lessons of the day were relatively disinteresting, the only high point being when the short-haired girl had finally erupted over something... and the child-teacher had _drained her life-energy_ and used it to shapeshift into an older form.

That was seriously powerful magic at work. Except there had seemed to be no magic whatsoever involved in the incident. Most peculiar. This bore further investigation.

"Gosunkugi-kun." Ranma began. "Is that... a common disciplinary measure?"

"Common... here? Sure. Hinako-sensei goes out of her way to target troublemakers and delinquents, but occasionally innocent bystanders get caught up in things. If you mean in Japan as a whole though, then no... Furinkan is pretty unique that way. All sorts of things that would raise havoc anywhere else, don't even rate a raised eyebrow here. Especially when _Saotome_-" He spat the name out like a curse, Ranma noted."-is involved somehow."

Gosunkugi continued to ramble softly under his breath, though Ranma caught something about 'cursed fools' and 'womanising prick' as an evilly gleeful look fell over him for a moment, before being replaced with a more genial demeanor.

"A womanizer?" Ranma said, feigning shock. "How horrible. Should I be worried for my bodyguards' safety?" He wondered aloud, making Gosunkugi twitch at a specific dropped word.

The guant boy eyed the two women carefully. So far, they certainly seemed more restrained than Saotome's usual choice of fare...

"They... should be fine." He decided. "Saotome usually confines his depredations to a few specific girls, including..." He let loose a deep, lovelorn sigh "... the fair Akane, scum of the earth that he is. I'd be more worried about the town lecher... he's almost completely indiscriminate in his targets, so long as they're female."

Ranma made a careful show of eyeing the class suspiciously, as though he was afraid for the virtue of his guardians... when in fact he wasn't entirely sure and had no intention of asking if they even had not only those desires but the equipment to fulfil them with. On some subjects, ignorance _was_ bliss.

"I... see. Oh, I'd almost forgotten to ask... what exactly _was_ that, that the instructor just did?" Ranma said, leading slowly to the topics he actually wanted answers for. "It looked like she drained that girl's life energy itself and absorbed it somehow..."

He realized belatedly that Gosunkugi was suddenly giving him a suspicious eye.

"You're a... martial artist?" He whispered, the last two words said in the same manner one would say 'serial murderer', or 'tax assessor'. Ranma rushed to do damage control.

"Oh my, no. Well, no more than a hobbyist at any rate... I have a very specific skill-set. I do, however, know enough in theory to recognize and identify some things, especially when they happen right in front of me."

Gosunkugi relaxed marginally.

"Well... you're pretty much right." He continued on to explain as much as he knew about how the technique itself worked (not much), and continued on about the teacher's history (of which he only knew slightly more for fact, the rest of which was conjecture).

Ranma, however, had stopped listening when he'd confirmed that certain members of the class had their energies drained often, and had, it seemed, become quite used to it so long as it was presented as a martial arts technique.

Plots began spinning as the conversation slowly dragged to silence, and time ticked on, towards the noon-meal release.

Ranma didn't really have anything in the way of money, but his youma took care of that for him... Obsidian 'relaxing' artfully against a tree and drawing stares from a male crowd, while Sandstone carefully relieved those crowds of a bill or token of currency apiece. The minor theft garnered enough for a modest meal, which he began eating as he leaned against the shady side of a tree, his youma maintaining a silent vigil at his sides.

And here came storming the redheaded Saotome, fairly seething a cloud of anger and frustration. He stopped in front of Ranma.

"May I... help you?" Ranma wondered aloud, and was answered by a sneer.

"My name is Saotome _Ranma_." The redhead said, emphasizing the last word. "And I don't appreciate name-thieves."

Saotome's fist came up and in a blur as Ranma watched, fascinated with the sheer speed, and even managed to press slightly into his nose before Obsidian tackled the redhead and pinned him facefirst into the ground, an arm twisted painfully behind his back.

"You _dare_ attempt assault upon the person of our Lord?" She snarled angrily.

"Bitch! You interfere with me? I'll-!" Saotome's invecture was interrupted as Obsidian slammed his face into the dirt a second time.

"Orders?" Sandstone asked from her place beside Ranma. He carefully rubbed a finger beneath his nose, and stared at the spot of red the action left on his glove before removing a napkin and delicately dabbing.

"Hurt him." He decided. "Drain him somewhat. And then do something appropriately humiliating... perhaps dump him in a pool of water or a canister of garbage somewhere. Do not kill him, or drain him overmuch, however."

"Hear that, scum?" Obsidian growled into the redhead's ear. "Our Lord is merciful... your execution has been canceled. The matter of punishment remains, however."

She picked him up and tossed him into the air, where he recovered remarkably quickly and reoriented himself to come down in an attack focused at Obsidian. His plans were interrupted, however, when Sandstone struck from behind and above him, destroying his intended attack and sending him spinning facefirst into Obsidian's fist.

The rest of the fight, if one could call such a one-sided beatdown a 'fight', continued in much the same vein, juggling the steadily weakening redhead between the two youma as a crowd gathered. The one with the wooden training sword seemed particularly amused at the spectacle, although none of the onlookers actually seemed at all upset to watch the thrashing, Ranma reflected as he slowly finished his meal.

It wasn't long before the draining strikes of the two youma had weakened Saotome considerably, enough that his attempts to continue the fight were pathetically feeble, and Sandstone carefully pinned him and hoisted him over a shoulder as she left. A minute or so later, there was a large splash and she returned.

"Information to report."

Ranma nodded at her to continue.

"Contact with water seems to have caused him to spontaneously shift gender. Unknown as to why."

Ranma hesitated slightly, but took the information in stride.

"Magical in nature?"

"Unknown."

"Well... we'll just have to find out."

The bell rang shrilly, signalling a return to class.

"Later. We'll investigate the shemale Saotome later."

There were a couple of nearby snickers, and Ranma got the feeling that the new appelation would be Saotome's official nickname by this time tomorrow. No matter... if the stripling took offense, he would simply be chastised again, and worse.

xxx

When they returned to the base, Ranma was... not exactly surprised, but certainly irritated to find Kunzite lounging on the sofa in a small towel, lazily flipping through channels on the television as he munched on a sandwich of some kind.

"If you're here..." Ranma began. "Then I know full well that Zoicite's here somewhere as well."

"Shower." The eldest general grunted through a mouthful of food. After a moment he paused, obviously considering something, before he continued.

"By the way... might want to change your sheets. Just a suggestion."

"I assure you, if it wouldn't draw attention from the locals, I'd even now be purifying the room. With fire."

Kunzite let loose a short bark of laughter before taking another large bite of his sandwich.

"Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, _why_, exactly, are you two sexfiends here? Please note that if I am unsatisfied with your explanation I will _find_ a way to toss the two of you into the street in the altogether."

Kunzite hesitated as a slight leer fell over his features, indicating that he was very seriously considering that situation... and the sort of things he could then do to force the junior General to allow the lovers back _in_ to his house. It wasn't like their shriveled and withered senses of modesty or shame would be playing any major factor in the situation.

Then he glanced at the wall clock.

"Eh... I'll get back to you in a second."

He teleported away and there was a long drawn out silence before he teleported back, a tied up and dripping Zoicite under one arm and a small table thing of some sort under the other.

"NOT ON MY CARPETS!" Ranma snarled, immediately seeing where the situation was heading and plotting dire vengeance.

"Don't worry, your carpets are safe." Kunzite replied, amused. "Though perhap slightly damp. Little Zoi-chan has been a naughty boy and needs to be punished."

Zoicite moaned softly in agreement through his gag as Kunzite bent him over the table and carefully lashed him to it.

"And so, I'm letting him stew for a few hours."

Zoicite whimpered, despite the fact that everyone in the room knew full well that he was physically strong enough that he could break his bindings at any time. He paused, then wiggled himself hopefully in Ranma's general direction.

Ranma studiously averted his eyes as Kunzite sat back down and took another bite out of his sandwich.

"Anyway, Nephrite got this bright idea a few hours ago." He swallowed and finished off the rest of his sandwich. "Since the three of us have pretty much nothing to do, and... don't tell Beryl, but the Dark Kingdom is one of those places it really sucks to be in, even if you're in charge... we're turning this place into a 'long term control post', and crashing here instead of our quarters in the Dark Kingdom. It's not like Beryl cares anyway, where we are or what we're doing, so long as we come when she calls."

Ranma frowned deeply, but really couldn't complain. He did owe the freaking house itself to Nephrites actions, as the man could have decided to slap the portal he'd requested in some sewer main. _They_ were fairly out of the way and seldom traveled, and so would have suited the wording of his request.

"So, where's astrology-boy, then?" He asked, after a moment of silence.

"Roof. Setting up wards to avoid detection in case the rest of the senshi wake up and start seriously looking for us."

Ranma grunted, displeased with the lack of an opportunity to yell at the man.

xxx

The next morning, Ranma returned to school, having discerned that it was a readily available source of information on the recent history of earth and of what they could expect in the way of opposition.

The redheaded Saotome was waiting for him inside the gates, wrapped in bandages and obviously still stewing in rage.

"You!" He howled gesturing dramatically and subtly wincing as he aggravated his many bruises. "I challenge you! Right here, right now! Fight me like a man!"

"You don't want to wait to heal first?" Ranma wondered aloud.

"Hah! A weakling like you, who relies on girls to fight for you? I can crush you at any time!"

Ranma shrugged.

"So be it."

Saotome rushed forward, and quickly came to a screeching halt, tumbling backwards as Ranma's sword slashed through the air where his throat would have been if he hadn't seen the slight flash of the blade being drawn.

"The hell... Live steel?"

"Is there a problem, Saotome? You called the duel... the consequences be on your own head. If you're afraid of getting bloody, though, you can always forfeit."

"Screw you! Saotome Ranma fears _nothing_!"

The duel restarted, Saotome darting around like a hyperactive bumblebee as he tried to attack from every direction he could. Ranma, on the other hand, had a great deal of experience fighting with opponents both stronger and faster than he was, was far more economic with his motion. He barely moved from his position, only turning to keep his eyes on the redhead and moving his sword whenever Saotome came in to attempt an attack.

Minutes passed and the outcome of the duel was slowly becoming more and more obvious. Ranma was barely breathing hard, while his redheaded opponent had been run ragged, his clothes nearly completely shredded off his body, coated with sweat, and sporting a multitude of scratches, each of which was placed so that it was obvious he had only just avoided a lethal or crippling blow.

Ranma finished it with the last pass, suddenly blurring into motion where it became obvious that his opponent had expected him to remain still, ducking under a punch and kicking at the back of Saotome's knees as his blade swung in a calculated arc.

Saotome's braid plopped to the ground, and he reached up to clutch desperately at his throat, as though he expected his head to fall off at any moment. Ranma snorted and wiped his sword clean before sheathing it and picking up the red braid.

"This time, I've taken your hair as a trophy." He stated. "Only because your skull is not worthy of adorning my mantel. Challenge me again with such meager skills, little fool, and I shall cleave it in half."

He paced around to in front of Saotome, who seemed shell-shocked at the sudden end to the battle. He smirked.

"You should be grateful I allow you to live. My instructors in the art of the blade would be quite horrified to learn of that leniency, I assure you."

Saotome snarled at him, and was kicked in the back by Obsidian, sending him sprawling forward into a mockery of obeisiance as he kissed the dirt.

"Know your place, worm! Twice now, my Lord has allowed you your life, and _still_ you spit upon his kindness. I should-"

"Obsidian! That is enough. Let him stew in his humility for a time."

xxx

It was nearly an hour later that Saotome Ranma clawed his way to his feet and staggered home, ignoring school for the day. There was something more important that he had to do.

He entered the family home and sat at the table, waiting to be recognized before he spoke.

"Mother... I... I need advanced training in the katana."

Nodoka smiled over her teacup.

xxx

A.N. Because you insisted.

Vague plot forming here. I can guarantee, however, that there will be no happy little family reunions anytime soon.

After Ranma's disappearance from the crib, Genma wasted no time at all in concieving another heir, and since then _both_ of the Saotome parents have gone out of their way to pretend like the embarrassing disappearance of their first child never happened, going so far as to name the second after him. This new Ranma Saotome takes after his mother in haircolor, and somewhat in looks, but he's less attractive in both forms than the original Ranma would have been. He has all of canon-ranma's faults and then some, with only a few of his good attributes, watered down. He's not quite as good a fighter, learns combat techniques only about half as fast (which is still exceptional), and has pretty much none of the 'Saotome Charm'. Compounding that is that he actually _does_ have your standard teenage libido.

Akane's stuck with him because of the agreement. Shampoo is walking a fine line... doing enough to keep him interested and thus avoid the punishments for letting her 'husband' get away, but without actually catching him. Ukyou is considering marrying him, but would much rather cleanse he stain on her honor by killing him. As a matter of fact, the only person who actually _likes_ neo-Ranma is Kodachi, who is probably the only woman in the district he actually avoids, as she's even loopier than in canon and he's privately terrified of her.

'Side from that, everything else is pretty much the same, except that it takes the new Ranma longer to come out on top in tough situations. And he's never going to beat the original... who has a freaking lot of experience with that sword of his, and hasn't had much to do except practice with it and learn how to command effectively.

As for Obsidian and Sandstone, they're individually weaker than even the new-Ranma, but work extremely well together, as is evidenced from their victory over him. They will each have one special ability, I haven't decided what yet, but whatever they are they will mesh together more than well enough to make up for both of them being essentially one trick ponies.


	3. Chapter 3

Lord Ranma

xxx

Ranma had quickly discovered something very important to all of his long term plans. Namely, that there were certain types of people that nobody would really notice missing, or if they did, would only be grateful that they had gone elsewhere.

People could be so very callous.

Rumi had been on the street for the past year, having been unable to pay off her college debts and having lost everything but the clothes on her back, begging for spare change, digging through other people's garbage for food that hadn't quite spoiled and things that could be pawned for enough money for her next meal. Sometimes she was fortunate enough to find something relatively valuable, and would eat reasonably well for a week or so. At other times, she was not so fortunate, and became well acquainted with the sensation of hunger.

Currently, she was in the middle of one of the latter times. The gnawing sensation in the pit of her stomach was so occupying that she didn't notice the trio around her where she had slumped against an alley wall until the male of the three squatted down next to her and tapped her on the shoulder. She stared at him for a moment, eyes empty, before she seemed to register her surroundings.

"Spare... spare some change, mister?" She croaked, unable to even inject a note of hopefulness into her voice.

"Come with me."

She wasn't sure why she suddenly found herself lurching to a stand, or what it was that the young man in front of her was offering to some portion of her hindbrain. After a few steps, she drew a conclusion, and stumbled slightly, but continued on. The mere thought of it would have horrified her parents... although they'd become much less of a factor after throwing her out of their house and informing her she would not be welcome back until she'd gotten out of her money problems. Even so, though the practice would have been abhorrent to her in almost any other conditions, the hunger was occupying the majority of her brain and she was prepared to do just about anything for food at this point. The only confusing thing was that she was almost rail thin now, even the fat from her bosom having shrunk away. Why, then, had the admittedly attractive young man selected her when there were others, more attractive and better fed, walking the streets?

Her thought processes ground to a complete halt as the man led her into a house, where a table had been prepared with food. So much _food_. Sandwiches and fruits and stuff and _food_!

She dimly heard the man's offer to 'help herself', and even knowing that accepting anything could imply a contractual agreement of some sort she could not resist the sweet temptation offered by _food_.

Everything went blank for a moment, and then the table seemed considerably emptier as there was an unpleasant, nearly painful bulge in her abdomen. Oh dear. The unnamed male seemed terribly amused.

"Sandstone, our guest has eaten. Show her to the shower, and assist her if required."

Thankfully, Rumi was able to scrub and rinse herself on her own, as she wasn't sure how she would deal with that sort of humiliation. And entirely aside from that, the women had had a certain... _hungry_ feel to them, that she wasn't sure how to feel about. She had nothing personally agains women who... preferred the company of other women, but even so, she got the feeling there was something more to it.

By the time she was led back down to a living room, wrapped in a bathrobe and with her clothes, which had been cleaned and mended neatly at some point, she had come to a very firm conclusion of what was going to be expected of her in exchange.

The young man took a careful sip from his teacup before setting it in a saucer on the table.

"I see you're finished. Now, miss, I have a proposal for you."

Rumi forced a smile as she allowed her robe to fall completely open, presenting her clean body for inspection. The man's eyebrows shot to his hairline, triggering a sudden sinking feeling that she'd misunderstood something.

"Iuh-buh... Sit down." He said, seeming to get control of his tongue. "Tea, perhaps?"

Flushing heavily, Rumi covered herself and sat down swiftly, once again confused as to what was going on.

"I have an offer to make, miss. Forgive me for the moment if I outline it in the most vague of terms for the moment, but keep in mind that until you agree you are free of obligations and may leave at any time."

'Free of obligations'? In spite of everything, that only made her suspicious, although what he could be planning when he'd already demonstrated disinterest in 'that'...

"I represent a certain group, who are in need of something you can provide for us. I will go ahead and say that it isn't sex... we can find that easily enough on our own." He finished in a mumble. "In any case, we are willing to supply your needs, so long as you agree to fulfil _ours_. I can assure you that it is nothing dangerous, painful, or damaging in any way involved."

Rumi was now very suspicious.

"You... aren't vampires, are you?" She asked dubiously. Ranma arched an eyebrow at the query.

"Vam... pires?"

"You know... fangs, drink the blood of the living, eternal thirst, _graar_? Vampires."

Ranma was unwilling to admit just how close to home the description had hit, but shrugged it off.

"I'm... afraid I can neither confirm or deny your accusation." He demurred, taking another sip of tea.

There was a long patch of silence before Rumi sighed.

"Vampires, huh.... still better than the streets, and it's not like I have a lot of options. Fine... sign me up, mister vampire."

There was a soft rustle from behind her as the two women advanced and latched themselves to her, and there was a sudden rush, as though fire was flowing through her veins and was slowly being drawn out through her skin. It... tingled, for lack of a better word. After a moment, she started to go cold...

"Enough. She is unused to the drain."

Reluctantly, the women released her and stepped away, leaving her to slump to the couch. She felt... well to be perfectly honest, she felt like those times back in college, when she'd spent late nights with her boyfriend and had to be up early. Still some lingering afterglow, but mainly achy and tired. It left her wondering just what she'd gotten herself into.

To Rumi, and more than a few that followed her, Ranma was an angel. On the other hand, there were other undesirables about.

"D-Demons..." gasped the middle aged man, before Ranma pinned him to a wall with his swords.

"Demon, you say? Scum such as yourself who forces himself upon women and murders them?"

"You... have... no proof!" He snarled, prompting Ranma to lean in.

"Proof acceptable in your courts of law? Perhaps not. How fortunate for me, then, that I don't _need_ proof to do what I intend."

Ranma twisted the sword and the man passed out. When he came to, he was somewhere dark and cold, encased to his hips in stone, shirtless, and with a variety of tubes poking into him in all manner of places.

"There is something you have, that I'll be taking from you now." Ranma said. "And I'll continue to take from you for a long time yet. If you wish, feel free to scream. There's nobody nearby to hear you or interrupt us, and it reassures me that I'm doing everything correctly.

It wasn't long at all before the man took Ranma up on his offer.

xxx

"Jadeite's not happy." Nephrite stated over coffee. "He doesn't deal well with the success of others. Combine that with the fact that he's been regularly and repeatedly failing in all his own endeavors, and he's in a constant boiling rage these days."

Ranma grunted and finished off his cup, staring moodily into the bottom before filling it back up again.

"So?" He asked. "He probably won't stoop to attempt assassination, and as long as he doesn't catch me infringing on one of his operations, there'll be no-"

The doorbell sounded, surprising both of them. Surprising, as neither of them had actually realized there _was_ a doorbell. Ranma shrugged, rose, and moved to greet their visitor... and opened the door just in time to see a rapidly advancing and colorful sphere, followed by a bunch of twinkly stars, which were themselves followed by a whole lot of black.

When he came to, he was lying on the couch with a blanket tossed haphazardly over him.

"Shampoo no_ understand_! New boy beat Airen, so new boy should be strong enough to beat Shampoo! So why new boy not dodge?"

"Can't imagine, dear." Nephrite said, seeming to be terribly amused about the whole situation. Vengeance would be had for that indignity.

"New boy not awake _yet_? Gah! Shampoo go now... but Shampoo be back to make new boy into new Airen soon!"

Ranma remained still for several more moments before slowly sitting up.

"What on earth was _that_ all about?" He wondered aloud, rubbing his face.

"I'm not entirely sure. From the girl's depressed and grammatically-challenged rant, however, it seems that the young man you recently humiliated was something to her, and she's either attempting to avenge him or force you to take his place. Probably the second."

"Great. As though I didn't have enough on my plate."

"Oh, she shouldn't be too hard to avoid. Her bright, purple hair is somewhat distinctive, after all."

Ranma blinked slowly and opened his mouth to speak.

"OH GOD YES!" Came a piercing wail from above, and his jaw snapped shut. After a moment of hesitation, he consciously chose to edit the last couple of seconds from his mind.

"Purple? Really?"

"Much the same shade as Beryl's awful throw rug." Nephrite replied, having obviously done similar mental editing of his own.

Ranma's imagination conjured up an image of a faceless woman with a hideously patch of carpet wrapped around her skull like a turban. He shoved it away quickly.

"Well... still not the strangest hair color I've seen." He admitted wryly.

"True."

"Aaall the WAAAY!" The howl came again, as Naphrite carefully sipped at his coffee.

"By the way... you might want to wash your sheets again, soon. Just a suggestion."

xxx

How hard was it to dodge a woman with bright, purple hair? The answer, it seemed, was 'surprisingly'. Every time he turned around, it seemed, she was there and she was already midway through the process of bringing those oversized maces into contact with his skull.

Duels, he could do. Formal duels, or informal ones even, he had a lot of practice in. Surprise attacks, however, were a field in which neither he nor his guards had very much experience.

But he learned fast. Oh, did he learn. Though when the alternative was having one's brains become one with the surroundings, one had a tendency to. His first instructor and sparring partner, lieutenant-class youma Granite had employed much the same tactics against him after he'd been taught the basics.

The next time he heard a strange noise, he dropped to his knees and rolled backwards, having nothing to lose but his dignity if he was mistaken. Portunately for his pride, the purple-haired menace's maces crashed into the ground where he'd been standing only a moment before.

She was grinning, her eyes alight with a sudden anticipation. He'd be sure to rebuke her of that.

"You've proven yourself quite the annoyance. I won't lie. I don't really understand what's going on in your head, or why youre so ridiculously persistent, but it seems that you aren't just going to go away if I ignore you."

"Amazons is persistent womans. Shampoo is most stubborn and strongest of whole generation."

Clearly, that was a 'no'. Ranma glowered, hand going to the hilt of his sword before he noted the slowly gathering crowd. He snorted and shifted his gaze, then darted to a building, jumping onto a trash can, from there to a higher windowsill, taking a wobbly moment to re-orient himself before leaping again, grabbing the edge of the roof and heaving himself bodily over it, rolling to come up onto his feet.

The wench, naturally, cleared the distance in a single powerful leap. If she wasn't so very obviously human, he might have suspected her of being some sort of youma in disguise.

"We're still not free of onlookers here, but it will have to do." Ranma decided, eyes going cold as he slowly unsheathing his sword.

"Heh. New-boy fight for real, now? Good. Then Shampoo no hold back!"

Ranma spun and pivoted around the opening mace thrust, similarly evading the follow-up smash. She was powerful, yes, Ranma realized as it smashed a hole in the roof. On the other hand, her level of skill, while decent, was sadly lacking in comparison. And Ranma regularly defeated hideously powerful, but less skilled foes.

"I shall lay a wreath of flowers upon your grave." Ranma decided, cleaving at the base of the girl's spine.

Something intervened though, blurring in and snatching her out of the way of the lethal blow, fast enough that only a small tuft of hair was severed and drifted to the ground.

The girl was still grinning widely, and for some reason that irked him a great deal as she turned partway to the shriveled monkey-thing that had interfered.

"You see, great-grandmother?" She asked, causing Ranma's eyes to widen and bile to rise as he realized that something must have, at some point, _bred_ with it. "New-boy is _very_ strong."

"Yes..." The crone mused aloud. "I've been watching. What's fascinating is... he uses no ki. Not a bit. Not to speed his attacks, or to toughen his body, or to infuse his muscles with strength, or to aid in balance, or any other use I can recognize, and I've been around a long time and seen a fair few. Everything he's done thus far, has all been within the limits of his body alone."

"Aiya! Shampoo wondered why new-boy seem so weak sometimes."

"Do not confuse physical strength with strength, Xian Pu." The crone chided. "Even without Ki use... he's extremely skilled. Huhuhu... can you imagine what he'll be like when trained in its use?"

Shampoo squealed again, prompting a twitch from Ranma.

"Hey. I don't understand what you two are saying. Why would I want training from you? Aside from that... You should already have realized, crone, but I intend to kill your spawn, there."

The ancient creature cackled as he twitched his sword in Shampoo's direction.

"I noticed. When you struck, you didn't bother with any showy techniques, but went straight for the finishing blow. The question is, muko-dono to be, if you really think that I will just stand back and allow that?"

"Hmf. Can you stop me?" Ranma wondered aloud, bringing the sword up to rest the against his shoulder and eyeing the crone speculatively."

"Why not try these old bones and find out, sonny boy?"

Ranma grinned wryly. The life energy of this crone had flared up and begun to blaze like an inferno around her, and he suspected that it was visible to even normal eyes. That... meant that life energy was the Ki they'd spoken of. He couldn't even begin to imagine how such a use for it had been discovered.

Even so, he didn't personally have any desire to learn it. He had far better uses for his own life energy... keeping his personal youma at top efficiency being one big one. The crone seemed determined, however. He began the fight, and swiftly came to the conclusion that he was actually outmatched in this one. The crone was still slightly less skilled than he was, as even she had not had as much time as he had to polish her moves, but those life energy techniques were enough to make up for the gap, putting her well ahead of his level.

It was ridiculous, but he was slowly realizing that he couldn't win the battle.

"Aiyaaa... Great-grandmother beat new-boy soon. Shampoo so happy to have new Airen!"

His eyes glinted, strategies whirling as a small knife dropped out of his sleeve and into his hand, and the crone suddenly interposed herself between the two.

"Don't even think it... there's no way you can throw that faster than I can block. I can read your intentions in your eyes."

"Can you?" Ranma asked, a wide smile blossoming on his face with, it must be admitted, just a hint of a mad tone to it.

He stabbed the knife into his own stomach, and relished the sudden panic on his opponent's faces.

"Hah..." He coughed. "You should be... more careful about speaking of your goals. I don't know what this 'Airen' thing is, but it seems you need me in good condition... or at least, alive, for it. You're... too strong for me to defeat easily." He admitted, seeming to be more physically injured by it than by the knife scraping against his intestines.

"Don't move!" He barked at a horrified Shampoo, who'd taken a clear step forward. She froze as he nudged the knife a little further in.

"Heh... good girl." He smirked, ignoring the way blood was spreading like a crimson flower over his school uniform, but nudging the edge of his ornamented trench-jacket out of the way in an effort to prevent it from staining.

"This knife is sharper than most razors." He commented, baring teeth in a creepy grin. "I'm going to leave now... I'm tired of dealing with this nonsense. If either of you two try to stop me... I'll slice open my stomach, carve out my guts, and throw them into traffic."

"You would kill yourself?" Cologne questioned, careful to make no sudden moves.

Ranma grinned in response.

"Who knows? This could well be just a calculated bluff. Something you should know, though... of the Five Generals-" Cologne noted the unfamiliar group carefully, intending to look into it later. "- it's a unanimously agreed upon fact that I am the most spiteful and petty. Can you really afford to assume I'm bluffing?"

Cologne continued to remain carefully motionless, Shampoo following her lead. Ranma smirked and sheathed his sword with one hand, slowly and carefully to avoid jostling the other one, which was still on the hilt of the knife.

"Thought so." He said, smirking as she stepped sideways off the roof, dropping into a rapidly clearing crowd.

"Out of my way!" He snarled, to hurry them on. He was late for the rendevouz with his youma, who'd been spending the day memorizing as many points of interest around Nerima as possible. The crowd parted nearly instantly.

They hadn't seen much of the interaction, not being roof-hoppers themselves, and most of the speech had been low enough that they couldn't hear any pertinent details from the ground, so as they looked up and saw the amazons at the edge of the roof, watching Ranma leave with steely eyes, they drew a natural, if incorrect conclusion.

Within no time at all, the word had gone around that one of the Amazons, though it couldn't be agreed which, had stabbed the new student. As they didn't bother to either refute or acknowledge the claim, and Ranma arrived at schol the next day with a loose bandage peeking out from beneath his shirt before he tucked it away and moving stiffly, as though it was painful to move his torso, the rumors were widely accepted as fact, despite that the details were somewhat confused. After all, details were rarely simple or clearcut on any topic in Nerima.

Ranma casually and 'accidentally' allowed a photocopied sketch of a map to fall to the ground behind him as he left school grounds. By the time it was picked up by a curious student, he was already long gone, and the big red 'X' over the Nekohantan, coupled with an 'avoid at all costs' note next to it would be enough to set the rumors turning another time or two and dragging the Amazon's just a little further into the mud, although he had taken a moment to pencil 'Property of Ranma' on the back, just to make sure that the message he'd intended to send was perfectly unmistakeable.

He'd not lied, when he'd claimed to be spiteful and petty, but even so it wouldn't do to pull out the big guns when the Amazon's had only just met him. They would grow used to him far too fast, and extracting vengeances would be made much more difficult. The other generals, for instance, took years of setup to get back at them for even the smallest of misdeeds at this point. While he doubted any of the Amazons, the crone specifically, would live that long, he also preferred revenge to be a quick and easy process, though he would take it any way he could.

All in all, though, things were going pretty well. At least, until the principal returned.

xxx

Next Chapter: "Aloooha Keiki! Da big Kahuna done be back from da Drama convention, an' he be habbin' da new rule for da Keiki. You wan's be gowan up to da nex' grade, you gotta be takin' part in a play, or you gets de new haircuts!"

Romeos and Juliets

xxx

A.N. Aaaand another couple of eccentrecies have come into play.

I hope you're all getting a picture of Ranma's fighting abilities. He doesnt have magic, or doesnt have much in the way of magic (haven't decided), and he doesn't and won't be using much of anything in the way of ki techniques, unless it's a really really desperate life or death situation, but his sheer skill and experience with his sword ranks him right up there, just under Cologne and Happosai with all of them going all out. If he's on a good day, and one of the elders is on a bad, he'll win handily, even. That's how close they are... and they have no reasun to suspect him of being anything other than a teenager.

Also, as you may have noticed, he's still as crazy about 'winning' as he would be normally. Just in different, sometimes more painful ways.

As to Neo-Ranma's age, yes he's a year younger than old-Ranma should be. However, _he_ doesn't know that and nobody_ else_ knows it either. Aside from Genma and Nodoka, obviously. Everyone else is still under the impression that he's the one and only Ranma Saotome.

And about his jacket, think like a pirate's overcoat. Something like that. It's spiffy, it represents his rank, and he'll be wearing it on every occasion that he's out of the Dark General Uniform suit. He will also be crazy overprotective of the thing. Just fyi.


	4. Chapter 4

Lord Ranma

xxx

The man cut a ridiculous image, what with his hawaiian shirt, flowery thing wrapped around wrapped around his neck, colorful shorts and sandals, and the ridiculous miniature tree that seemed to actually be growing out of his _head_.

On the other hand, he was apparently the principal, which seemed to mean that he was the unquestioned ruler of the school. In spite of his swiftly obvious insanity.

"Aloooha Keiki! Da big Kahuna done be back from da Drama convention, an' he be habbin' da new rule for da Keiki. You wan's be gowan up to da nex' grade, you gotta be takin' part in a play, or you gets de new haircuts!"

The man snapped his fingers and two long posters rolled down the wall, one displaying a hideously chopped bowl cut for the females, and a shiny bald dome for the males. Ranma twitched as he unconsciously reached back to touch his own hip-length locks. The majority of the student crowd was expressing similar sentiments, but the youma caught the gesture.

"Terminate?" Sandstone wondered aloud.

Ranma hesitated, giving serious thought to the suggestion, and pretending not to see how Obsidian was eagerly waiting for his answer.

"No..." He decided, regrettfully. "From what I understood, he left an easy way out."

Obsidian did her best not to look disappointed while Sandstone shrugged and noted that she had to look up this 'Drama' thing. Sadly, Ranma's thoughts were running along a very similar line.

xxx

There was a long line of people outside the drama club, who'd suddenly realized the value of performance art, both in general terms and in the more specific senses of both passing grades and keeping their hair.

"Name?"

"Tatewaki Kuno, Junior group E, Captain of-"

"Yes, Kuno. Got it. Desired position?"

"Well, obviously I shall be playing the leading role, as whoever else would be suited to-"

"Romeo. Got it. Now get out." The frazzled Captain of the Drama club growled. Obviously sensing the high levels of caffien in the senior's system, and not having any reason to kick up a fuss, Kuno left quietly and the captain knocked back another swig of a thick, black, tar-like substance that may have at one point dared to call itself coffee.

"Next. Name?"

"Ranma Saotome. Now look, buddy, I don't particularly want to be here, but now that I'm here, I'm obviously gonna be the leading man, right?"

The drama captain stared for a long moment before putting another tick in the 'Romeo' column and waving him to leave. This was beginning to seem like a living hell... so far, just about everyone who'd come in auditioning for the planned play had wanted to be either the male or female leading roles, had refused any suggestions otherwise and even grown violent in some cases. On the other hand, there was nobody volunteering for any of the other roles, meaning that this production was looking like it would be doomed before it even began.

"Next. Name and desired position?"

"Ohohohoho! I do believe I heard my darling mention his soon to be position as Romeo? Naturally I, Kodachi Kuno, the Black Rose, shall be the perfect Juliet to complement him!"

"Do you even attend this school?" He wondered aloud before shrugging, somewhat jaded at the process as he scribbled her name down and ticked one more in the Juliet column.

"Next."

"I, Happosai, founder of the Anything Goes style, shall be the best Romeo-!"

"Right. Next. Name and position."

"I am Ranma. What positions are still available, if I may ask?"

There was a long moment of silence, in which the club captain stared at Ranma like he was a mad scientist and Ranma was a new and fascinating abomination strapped to his dissection table.

"You... _don't_ want to be Romeo?" He said aloud, testing the unfamiliar phrase.

"Is that position free?" Ranma counterasked. The club captain answered by shoving his papers into his face.

"That... is a lot of names."

"I _know_!" The captain wailed, pounding a hand into his desk. "It's not that bad, for the most part. Most of these people will be reasonable and take different parts if they're turned down for the one they want. The problem is the wrecking crew."

"Wrecking...?"

"Right, new-guy." The captain mumbled to himself. "Well, the wrecking crew are a group of high-class martial artists. You've probably met a few of them by now, and I know for a fact that you've met one. Ranma Saotome. He's the nexus, although the others cause trouble as well."

The captain circled several names, and Ranma eyed them. Tatewaki and Kodachi Kuno. Akane Tendo. Ukyo Kuonji. Ryouga Hibiki. Happosai.

"Cologne, the amazon elder, and her granddaughter Shampoo aren't on there but they cause enough mayhem on their own, and Mousse tends to follow them around." His wound throbbed in recognition of the first two names. "And while Akane's sister, Nabiki, does get involved sometimes she usually just stays on the sidelines... egging them on and taking bets from the onlookers."

Ranma considered this for a moment.

"And...?"

"The problem is, of course, that none of them are gracious losers. They won't accept being an 'also-ran', or taking any position but the starring role. This is a disaster."

"I see. Well... a smart man does what he can, within the limits he is given. A _wise_ man changes the rules when nobody is looking."

"I... have no idea what you just said." The captain admitted. "But I really liked the way you said it. Do it again?"

"No. What I mean is... change the rules. Who says that there can only be one Romeo and Juliet?"

"It's a classic, and-"

"Then make it a 'revised' classic. Say... the Juliet sisters, and several Romeos."

"How would that even work?"

"I dunno." Ranma admitted. "I'm just throwing my only idea out there. Of course, if you _want_ to try to convince them to just happily accept you putting the best actor in the starring role..."

The captain shuddered.

"I'll... have to put a lot of work into this." He mused. Then he paused.

"Of course... this is _your_ idea. Therefore you'll have to remain in the thick of things to try to keep things running smoothly." The captain continued to muse.

"I.... think you should be aware that I am suddenly much less pleased with the way this conversation is going." Ranma stated.

"Good enough. Well done, Romeo number..." The captain paused and did a quick tally before slapping a sheaf of papers on the desk. "Number five."

Ranma grumbled to himself as he left.

xxx

Nabiki knew connections. She had a great many of them herself, and had a great deal of experience in ferreting out the connections of others. Even the vaguest of hints could turn into profitable connections, after all.

And she _knew_ there was a connection of some sort between the Ranma who lived at her house and the Ranma who'd arrived more recently. More of a relationship than the name, and the uncomfortably similar features, even.

For a short time, she had been convinced that the big secret was that the newcomer Ranma had some sort of vengeance plot against the Saotome's that involved taking the younger's name. Then she banished the thought, as too ridiculous even for Nerima.

Somewhere, a boy in camoflauged pants sneezed and rubbed at his nose in confusion.

After discarding the thought, she had moved on to the next leap of logic... that the newcomer was a bastard child, sired while Genma had taken Ranma on the training trip. The flaw with that logic was that the newcomer would have to have been a few years younger than Ranma for the theory to hold up, and if anything he seemed a touch older.

A leap of questionable logic led her to investigate Genma _before_ he'd gotten hitched to Aunt Nodoka and had a child, but had turned up nothing. Their marriage had been arranged, mostly due to the man's considerable lack of social graces and the fact that the families had gotten them married before either had gotten a terribly good look at the person they were being married to.

Before Nodoka, Genma hadn't even so much as known a girl who would be vaguely interested in him. No, unless he had forced himself upon someone at some point, which she doubted somehow, the earlier child theory was junk too.

By now, she was beginning to think that all the similarities were actually mere coincidence, for a change, but like a bulldog, she was unwilling to let go her grasp upon the idea. At least, until she'd looked into all the close family members on both sides of the Saotome tree, anyway.

Either way... there was definitely a connection of some sort there. She would find it sooner or later, and when she did the newcomer would pay through the nose for making gathering information on him into such a difficult proposition.

xxx

Ranma was midway through memorizing his lines when Jadeite dropped in, materializing out of nowhere to plop into a chair, smoldering heavily and with the cuff of one sleeve still burning. Ranma hesitated a long moment before pointing to the sink rather than pour his tea over the fabric. After all, it was a very nice blend... and Jadeite wouldn't come to harm from such a tiny fire. Not enough to be noticed against what he seemed to have already gone through, anyway.

"So..." Jadeite began, after dousing his wrist and returning to the seat. "Turns out Mars just showed up."

"I suspected as much." Ranma admitted. "It was that or that you'd had another unfortunate accident with the gas grill."

"One time!" He snarled, suddenly enraged. "Just let my attention slip the one time, and you all refuse to drop it!"

"It's not been nearly long enough, fellow General. You'll be hearing about it for centuries to come, I'm afraid." Nephrite interjected, not having looked up once from the handful of tabloids he'd discovered throughout the whole conversation. Supposedly, he was trying to work the horoscopes inside around his own astral predictions. In reality, Ranma was pretty sure that he was enjoying the sensationalized muckraking despite that he had no idea who the people being slandered were.

There was an audible thump from above, and Jadeite frowned as he looked up at the cieling.

"Didn't that come from...?"

"MY room? Yes." Ranma growled. "Apparently, they like my be best for some reason."

Jadeite shuddered a bit, sharing a brief moment of commisseration with his fellow generals before recalling why he was there in the first place.

"Anyway... Mars is back. Have I mentioned this?"

"Yes."

"Oh.. good. My point is, she has to die. In a fire. You're going to help me achieve that."

There was a long moment of silence.

"Ah..." Ranma mumbled, before raising his voice. "You... do _know_ that Mars is in fact the Senshi of Fire, right?"

"Of course."

"And... theoretically, you know... you don't think that plunging her into her _own element_ would have.... something like the opposite effect you seem to be going for, here. Or at best, no effect at all."

"Don't bother me with details, you little prick! I've said what I want, now it's your job to make it happen. Give me a due date, by which you shall be finished."

"Thirty-eighth of Juvember." Ranma replied immediately.

"Good." Jadeite nodded once, to himself, before giving into his blazing-hot-inferno induced deleriums and collapsing to the carpet.

"Hey... hey, no! He's grinding soot and flakes of burned skin into it! Out... Get him outside!" Ranma barked.

Nephrite grunted to himself as Ranma's two youma seemed to leap out of nowhere to obey their master's whims.

"You know..." He said aloud as there was another thump from above. "You might want to..."

"Sheets, yes. But this time... I have the upper hand." Ranma revealed. "You see, I washed sheets yesterday but I have not, in fact, changed them out yet today. They are, unbeknownst to them, ravishing each other upon _unwashed sheets_!"

Nephrite arched an eyebrow.

"Actually... no. They checked and changed them for fresh sheets before they got started."

Ranma twitched.

"I.... see. I'm going to go kick Jadeite now, while he's still lying prone and defenseless. And then, I'm going to put a set of sheets to wash."

"You do that." Nephrite agreed, happily, as he sipped at his coffee.

xxx

The drama captain twitched visibly as the gathering of students swiftly grew more and more rambunctious. He just knew that a fight would break out any moment, and was midway through the decision to drop it all and run away in a panic when Ranma, the new one, nudged him in the side.

"Yes, well..." he mumbled into the microphone, then coughed slightly to clear his throat and, hopefully, start settling the crowd down. Thankfully, it worked.

"As I was saying... due to the, uh, overwhelming influx of potential actors..." Who knew next to nothing about the play, or even drama in general, yet still insisted on aggrandizing their egos by collecting the leading role. "... There have been a few changes to the play."

"Whatever! Just get on with it and tell us who gets Romeo!" Came a cry from the crowd. The captain winced and steeled himself.

"Ranma."

A vast majority of the gathered students, spurred on by Saotome and Kuno no doubt, seemed to turn mutinous, and he hastened to continue.

"_As well as_ Ranma Saotome, Tatewaki Kuno, Ryoga Hibiki... is Ryoga here? Anyone know? No? Put him as a 'maybe', then... And Hikaru Gosunkugi."

He was hoping that they would assume he'd put the pale boy in as a token 'normal' person to appease the masses. In reality, while Gos was a heck of a lot weaker than the others, he still carried a metal spike and mallet wherever he went and the drama captain was unfortunately easy to intimidate.

"For now, study the basic lines but keep in mind that I'll be revising them within the next few days. Now... Juliet will be played by Akane Tendo, Nabiki Tendo, Ukyou Kuonji, and Kodachi... Kuno? Kuno-sempai, does your sister even attend this school? No, never mind, it isn't terribly important. Playing..."

The audience stopped paying attention as the drama captain began listing people he'd roped into playing secondary characters.

xxx

The day of the play came, and Ranma was finding himself sorely taxed, and reconsidering his decision to work undercover rather than hosting full scale assaults.

A 'careless and accidental' swing of Saotome's katana came dangerously close to him as they moved around the stage in what had degenerated into an unplanned battle scene, in which the Romeo's were attempting to work out which Juliet to woo.

From the outside, it would no doubt be terribly humorous to watch. From within, Ranma had just ducked under upperclassman Kuno's thrust and then quickly rolled aside to avoid Saotome's 'accidentally' dropped blade that had angled point first at his center of mass.

That Hibiki fellow had shown up for five minutes before wandering off, apparently out of boredom if Ranma hadn't misinterpreted the glazed look in his eyes, and Gosunkugi was wisely staying out of things, only piping in with a short line here and there before frantically removing himself from the attention of the actual fighters.

Really, while Saotome and Kuno seemed to be primarily targeting each other, for some reason the vast majority of the attacks were falling Ranma's way. While he'd managed to evade the vast majority of the m, at least enough to remain unbloodied, the poofier sections of his costume had long since been shredded.

"-Through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and-" Ranma managed to get out before having to stop wasting his energy on speech as he shunted it all towards dodging a hailstorm of blades from above.

"It is the east, and Juliet the sun!" The robed young man cried out, before tossing another handful of knives. "A beautiful son that shall not be stolen from me, blaggard!"

"Aiyaa! Romeo-Airen be careful, yes? Mousse is master of hidden weapons." Shampoo called from the prop terrace, where all the other Juliets were, completely uncaring that she and her cohort had inserted themselves into the play with no prior warning.

Saotome's sword went astray, however this time the accident seemed to truly be accidental as it sliced through one of the critical ropes that had been jury-rigged to hold up the terrace. It creaked slowly as the girls just stood there like surprised sheep, rather than getting themselves out of there, and tere was a loud crack as it gave way.

When the dust settled, the physically fit Romeos each had a Juliet in their arms, and Gosunkugi had fainted, crushed beneath Shampoo. Mousse was holding Akane, Saotome had caught Kodachi and had shifted to a parchment shade of pale, Kuno was disappointed with having caught Ukyou, and Ranma's wound had reopened and stained his costume as he'd strained himself moving to catch Nabiki, who'd been heading to a very bad landing. A death in his general vicinity would bring attention in his general direction and, while it was extremely unlikely that he'd be exposed, the risk was still unacceptable.

He gritted his teeth and made a quiet signal that had been arranged beforehand, for the drama captain, who was the narrator, to ad-lib him out. Sure, he hadn't lasted as long as he'd hoped, but he was tired and frustrated, and now he had to go tend to his wound as well.

"And so-" came the narration from the loudspeakers as the captain came through for him, "-Having rescued the correct Juliet sister from the unexpected collapse of their shoddily built tower, the first Romeo left to be wed to his beloved."

Ranma managed to carry the girl like a bride to the backstage before dropping her unceremoniously into a chair as he staggered to a cabinet and withdrew a long roll of bandages and tore off his shredded shirt rather than mess about with all the fiddly little catches and fastenings.

Nabiki stared as he wrapped them tightly around his torso, seeming surprised for som reason that the wound was still there. Then again, given just how many other limits the fighters here broke regularly, it was probably safe to assume that they healed faster as well. He, on the other hand, was stuck within normal human rates of healing unless he could make a case for magic to be used on his behalf, and for just a little stab wound he wasn't going to bother, especially as he'd done it himself.

"Thanks." She finally said, grudgingly, likely perfectly aware of the danger she'd been in but unwilling to admit that she owed him anything. He grunted in return as he tied off the bandage, then tested his range of motion. Loose enough to fight, if neccessary, but tight enough to apply enough pressure to keep the wound generally shut... unless he did something stupid and aggravated it again.

"Don't mention it. Nabiki, was it? I nearly didn't catch you... I had expected either your sister or her paramour to assist you, and was surprised when they didn't."

"Little sister can take care of herself. And she makes sure that Saotome knows that, but you can be sure that she'll explode on him anyway for catching someone else."

"Your safety... wasn't a factor for either of them?" Ranma wondered aloud, a black look crossing briefly over his face when Nabiki snorted.

"Are you serious? Little sister is ridiculously self centered, and while Saotome's had the whole 'protect the weak' thing drummed into him regularly, it doesn't always stick. They'd feel bad afterwards, I'm sure, but in the heat of the moment? No... nobody else is a concern for either of them then. Not even each other."

Ranma was obviously disgusted with the information as he tugged the shirt of his school uniform on and stepped behind a privacy screen to change. Loyalty was the coin of the Dark Kingdom, despite that life energy was its treasure. And that loyalty was almost expected to go two ways... from the bottom up, and from the top down, with varying degrees of service and protection flowing in both directions.

One should always take care to keep the safety of your minions in mind. Only the insane believed that any random youma could fill the place of a properly trained, experienced, and battle-hardened one. That really explained a great deal of the wide differences between Ranma's policies and those of the other Generals, and even the Queen, as they were all irrational to some degree. He would never, ever, say it aloud, but the reason that he was so regularly successful while Jadeite had so regularly failed wasn't down to ability or strategic sense or any kind of genius. It was simply that he didn't treat his soldiers like disposable pawns, and in return they pushed themselves beyond their limits for him.

"That's a pretty nasty wound." Nabiki commented, drawing him out of his reverie. "When did...?"

"You don't remember? The whole school was excited about it, when I first met miss Shampoo out there."

Her eyebrows rose.

"That was... two weeks ago?" She paused and then chuckled. "Strange... after living so long with Saotome, it's surprising to meet a fighter with normal healing rates. Saotome tends to heal from pretty much anything within a day or so, two on the outside."

"Hm... more of those flagrant wastes of life energy. I see."

Nabiki carefully filed away the unfamiliar term for ki that Ranma seemed to have accidentally dropped. Unfortunately, Ranma seemed to have also noticed that he'd dropped the term and clammed up, refusing to respond to any further attempt to draw him into conversation. She decided to chalk this one up as a tentative loss for the moment.

xxx

Next Chapter:

"I have recently been made aware that it is apparently traditional for newcomers to Nerima to kidnap a member of your household. Far be it from me to go against the established convention. Sandstone? Gently, if you will."

"Oh, oh my!"

Not quite a return to normalcy.

xxx

A.N.

In the original draft of this, I had indended to muck up a much longer segment of Shakespeare, and drag the youma into it somehow, but... eh. Stuff happened. So instead, you get this.

Also, given that I'm dealing with a heavy load of coursework this semester, and am looking for part-time work on top of that (seriously, I must be losing my mind), you can probably expect updates on this or anything else to be sporadic at best, given that I might not be able to squeeze in much typing time.

And I mean, like, sporadic for _me_. I'm not exactly the most regular updater to begin with.


	5. Chapter 5

Jadeite stared at the calender dumbly, the same way he had for the past ten minutes, as comprehension slowly came to him.

"Waaait a minute...."

xxx

Lord Ranma

xxx

"Raaaaanmaaaa!"

"I take it Jadeite finally took a good, long look at a calendar." Nephrite drawled before taking a sip of tea. Ranma winced slightly.

"Meh... He'll stew for a while, but he'll get over it. He's not delerious any more, so the sheer impossibility of what he was asking should be able to sink in."

Nephrite shrugged and tossed the tabloid he'd been reading haphazardly to the side as he reached for the next one. Ranma twitched.

"You know... I get that the whole cleaning thing is beneath your status as a general. Really, I do. Personally, if those two weren't defiling my sheets all the time, I wouldn't be doing any cleaning of my own either. But could you at least try not to actively make things worse?"

"It's not so bad." Nephrite responded, not looking up from his rag. Ranma snorted and snatched it away, forcing him to actually look at the papers and clothes scattered all over the floor, the used dishes piling up on every available surface, and the large pile of garbage under which, somewhere, there was a can.

"Okay... maybe it's not that great either." Nephrite admitted. "So get a youma in here to deal with it."

"Can't. Right now, we're right at the upper limits of what the wards will conceal. Even just one more youma, and that section of the wards will break and we'll sudenly be a bright glowy black dot on the Senshi's radar. Unless one of you wants to move out...?"

"Then make one of the youma that are already here do it." Nephrite grunted, doing his best to end the conversation.

"They've got work to do in the field." Ranma countered. "They wouldn't object to being inflicted with servant duties as well, but it would severely damage their efficiency in the important things."

"I see. I think...." Nephrite paused several moments, drawing out the wait. ".... You'll just have to find a solution."

"If I didn't know you would vaporize my kidneys for it, I would be smacking you right now." Ranma grumbled.

Nephrite nodded absently in a failed attempt to look like he was still paying attention as he went back to the tabloids.

Ranma started to grumble something under his breath before a subtle shift in the energies within the house notified his youma's return and he stood, moving to another room where he could be notified of whatever information they'd gleaned and determined tactically important. Or not tactically important. Because in the end, he needed to know everything in order to determine if it was important or not.

xxx

"Explain this to me one more time." Ranma said not too much later, as they made their way through the streets. "Just so I'm sure I didn't mishear something important."

"Every newcomer to Nerima thusfar has kidnapped one of the daughters of the Tendo household. The 'fairest, most lovely' one, I believe. It has progressed to the point where rumors have begun as people wonder why we have not yet staged our own attempt to kidnap her."

Ranma considered that as the next turn left them right in front of the Tendo dojo.

"No point delaying things then. A boost?"

Obsidian just-a-bit too eagerly took hold of him before leaping the wall, Sandstone just a half-moment behind them as they moved to the roof, where he was gently set down to walk. He'd fully learned the importance of dramatics, after all. And fortunately enough, the inhabitants of the dojo were taking their meal outside.

He took a moment to look over the Tendo girls, and it quickly became obvious which one he wanted. The other two quite simply didn't compare. Pointing her out to the youma, all three jumped down, somewhat rudely interrupting the gathered host.

"I have recently been made aware that it is apparently traditional for newcomers to Nerima to kidnap the fairest member of your household. Far be it from me to go against the established convention, and so in the name of the Dark Kingdom it seems I must remove her from you immediately. Sandstone? Gently, if you will." he declared authoratively.

"Oh, oh my!" Kasumi squeaked out as the youma took hold of her rapidly and leaped away, followed by Sandstone and Ranma, who'd once more needed a slight amount of help to clear the tall walls.

A long moment of silence passed before a dark scowl slowly formed on Akane's face.

"That guy... took KASUMI." Saotome stated dumbly, as though unsure that he'd actually seen what he'd thought he'd just seen.

Then, chaos broke loose as Akane shrieked something about 'killing the pervert for touching her sister'. The fathers followed up by grabbing her by the arms and physically carrying her inside. Nabiki just blinked.

"That guy took.... Kasumi?" Saotome stated again, completely dumbstruck at the shift to routine. Nabiki sighed as she went inside.

"Let me GO!"

"I'm afraid not daughter. We need you to remain in sight, indoors, at all times."

"Indeed Tendo!" Genma laughed. "Why, any minute now that lout will realize his error and return. But we'll be ready for him. We'll have the priest over in a matter of seconds, and have you safely married off before he's back, eh old friend?"

"Indeed, Saotome!"

The two adults shared a laugh and completely ignored Akane's dire threats as they carefully chained her up in a chair for her own protection. Nabiki shook her head and went upstairs to find where the headache pills had been stashed.

"................ Kasumi?"

xxx

Surprisingly, an apology had been all it took to smooth the whole thing over with Kasumi, as well as an exchanged promise that she wouldn't attempt to escape as long as Ranma tried not to injure anyone when they came to rescue her.

She was actually inexplicably excited about the whole thing, channeling it into a rapid and thorough cleaning, instantly putting her on not just Ranma's good side, but that of everyone occupying the outpost.

Kunzite and Zoicite even debated offering to let her join their little games, before they were forcibly reminded that she was, in fact, female.

Even Jadeite would later be forced to admit that he enjoyed having her around. Especially since Ranma was going to be 'away' for a while, leaving nobody else willing to do household chores. Not that he knew that, yet.

"So. A terribly amusing jest, to take advantage of your senior general in suc a way."

Ranma, suspended upside down by one or another of Jadeite's dark powers, simply shrugged, before deciding to speak. It wasn't like he wasn't already in trouble, after all.

"I thought it was, anyway."

Jadeite slapped him.

"Well.... fortunately for you, you've been quite successful in your endeavors, so the queen will not tolerate your death at the moment. On the other hand, she was most obliging when I suggested that perhaps a general as _successful_ as yourself deserved a little time off, as a... _vacation_ of sorts."

Ranma frowned as a portal appeared directly beneath his head.

"A pity, that I cannot do more than this. But keep in mind that you're expected back, to report to fulfil your duties again, in exactly one week."

A smirk twisted his face.

"Of course... if you _aren't_ back by then... it could be taken so many ways. Do have fun."

Ranma didn't even have time to curse before he was released and fell through the portal to who knew where.

xxx

Well, wherever it was, it was dark, Ranma noted. Then he realized that it was dark because it was nightime, as he glanced upwards, to the stars above. The wind was really quite nice.

He didn't realize he was still falling until he hit the ground with a crack, and his vision went dark for a moment before he set his claws into consciousness and forced it away.

He staggered to his feet, ignoring that at least one of his ribs had cracked with the impact, and spat out a gobbet of blood that he really hoped didn't contain a tooth, then unsheathed his sword.

Undamaged, fortunately enough. Good. His body would heal, but good swords were expensive to replace. He sheathed it and turned.

And stared at the two blue deer... things with blade-tails, surrounded by a bunch of hideous creatures, some bladed, some like awful bloated centipedes, not terribly far from a pair of some sort of craft. Spaceships. He'd heard of them... the moon kingdom had had more than a few, as they'd spanned the entire system, but they were like nothing he'd heard .

"Well?" He asked after a moment. "What are you looking at? Never seen someone hurled through a magic portal to crash painfully into the ground before?"

_Kill the interloper/Flee human!_ came a dual mental bellow, presumably from the deer-things as the others had all started to charge him.

Ranma grunted and unsheathed his sword again, noting that now would be a good time to have backup. Naturally, neither of his minions appeared.

'Didn't that just figure?' He grumbled to himself as his blade became a whirling dervish of mayhem.

The centipede things weren't at all difficult to kill, and in fact stopped to consume their dead every time one of their fellows were struck down. He noticed that quickly, and was disgusted by it, but quickly shifted his focus to the blade-creatures as more economical attacks, as they didn't. The beam things they fired at him every so often looked painful, but fortunately they were easy enough to dodge as well, and they didn't risk firing them often in close quarter combat.

After a moment, a few rocks started winging through the air from the darkness. And it wasn't that he didn't appreciate whoever it was trying to help, but they could do to learn a little accuracy. He was spending more time dodging, after a few short moments, than killing, and the centipedes were running out of corpses to consume.

"Stop trying to help!" he bellowed as he cleaved a pair of them in half, getting hit in the shoulder by a small chunk of concrete for his troubles. The rocks stopped though.

On the other hand, it got the attention of the deer things again.

One of them was plainly astounded, staring fixedly at Ranma's gore-splattered blade and the many fallen beasts. The other was, equally obviously, very pissed.

Now that his eyes had adjusted to the sudden dark, he could make out more than a few people over near them. But really, the monsters were taking up most of his attention.

_IMBECILES!_ came the mental roar, he assumed from the pissed-looking one. _Can you not deal with one worthless human on your own? Stand back. I shall finish this interloper myself, before dealing with Elfangor._

_Flee, Human!_ The counter came from the other one. _You can't possibly-_

The mental voice cut off in astounded silence as Ranma deflected the two slashes from the other deer-thing. The blade on its tail was fast, like a striking cobra. His instructors had all been faster.

"Feh. Is that all you have?" He parried another thrust, and managed to open a light gash on the tail as it retracted.

"I thought you were going to finish me? Or were you all talk?" he taunted.

If the thing had a mouth, Ranma was pretty sure there would be a terrible scowl there. Then it... bulged. Upwards and outwards as it grew and....

"Alright." Ranma admitted at the horrible result. "That's... a bit more impressive, I suppose."

The creature just roared in respons, thrashing wildly at him. He managed to dodge through the bulky appendages, tearing his nearly healed wound back open a little as he did, and got himself out of range, keeping wary eye on the beast.... as it turned from him and snatched up the nearest blade-beast, and stuffed it, screaming, into an oversized maw full of jagged teeth.

"Okay... not sure how I saw that coming, but that was just wrong."

_He has lost control of his morph! The Bogg's predatory intincts and hunger are what's in control now._ The other deer-thing... thought as it cantered through a group of panicking creatures, ignoring him to save themselves.

"So. Retreat?"

_That would be wise, human. It will only be a scant minute or two before Visser Three regains control of himself._

The deer thing set a finger against his forehead, and after a moment of shifting, Ranma was staring at his twin.

His _naked_ twin.

"Yuh yuh you wiiill have tuh too heh help-"

"Yeah, sudden biped-ness, I get it." Ranma grunted, quickly lifting one of his arms that weren't his over his shoulder and starting to quickly hobble away, ignoring the screams and mayhem behind them.

"Fair warning. Once the adrenaline wears off and all the pain I'm supposed to be in hits me all at once, our roles are gonna reverse, so I suggest you learn to walk _damn_ quick."

"Duh Duly nuh noh -ed."

Ranma wasn't clear on much after that. When he came to, however, he was on a couch in a cheap motel apartment with the window covered, the Elfangor thing in its natural form nearby, flipping idly through channels on the television sitting in the corner. Then the pain hit.

_You're awake._ it noted.

"Yeah... and I don't suppose this place has any painkillers? No? Thought not. Sword?"

It pointed at where the blade was leaning against the wall.

Ranma spared enough time to unsheath it and see that the Elfangor thing had taken the time to clean it before putting it away and stalking to the door.

_You have no questions?_

"No."

xxx

Not long after that, Ranma had begun to reconsider his curt and swift dismissal of the situation.

_"While we are as yet unsure why a terrorist would target an abandoned construction lot-"_ The newscaster pictured on the tv display said, mocking him unknowingly with the hasty sketch of his face that they were showing. _"-he is considered armed and dangerous, and under no circumstances should you attempt to confront him directly if encountered. If seen, please contact-"_

"The Yeerks do not take interference lightly." Came a familiar voice from behind him.

He turned to his 'twin'... thankfully wearing clothes this time, though he doubted he would ever forget the image of himself in a hawaiian print floral shirt, flipflops, and swimtrunks out of his head.

"So then... walk with me." Ranma offered. "Tell me of these Yeerks."

They walked, keeping to deserted alleys and less used roads, as the Elfangor spun a tale of aliens, betrayal , a bitter war begun, and the ripe planet that was earth coming to the notice of the bodysnatching slugs that were yeerks.

There were 5 classes of species from the Yeerks point of view. Class one species were those that were barely a step up from remaining a slug floating in a pool of murky water, hardly worth the effort. Class two were those who were easily taken and decent hosts for their infestion, but had some sort of flaw, that they only bred once in their lifetime and bore only a few young, for example, that made them less than appealing. Class three were good hosts that were difficult to get ahold of due to their own defenses. Class four were excellent hosts that were almost impossible to infest, the Elfangor's species being the prime example.

And then there were Class Fives. Humans were the only class five species that yeerks had discovered, being incredibly numerous, useful host bodies, with no real defenses against them whatsoever.

Or so they thought. The Dark Kingdom didn't take kindly to interlopers attempting to conquer the planet that they had laid claim to for millenia.

"I... must report this." He mumbled softly. "Plane... no. No money, and with being branded a terrorist... boat. I have to find a boat, or I have to swim, and I need a map."

"I will help." The Elfangor offered generously. "After the crash, I was severely weakened and disoriented. I believed I was going to die. I _would_ have died, for there was no way I could have escaped Visser Three alone in that condition. This is the very least I can do to repay you for that."

It took them the rest of the day to... 'borrow' a car that the owner had unwisely left the keys inside, calmly hijack some rich, but equally foolish, person's yacht when they reached the coast, and put to sea.

Before changing into a bird of some sort, the Elfangor had requested a promise that, if at all possible, he would send aid.

That would be no difficulty. He knew of more than a few bored youma without ears.

It was days after that that he reached Japan, and a while after that before he made it back to Nerima, just hours in time to go report to the Queen and thank her, profusely, for the vacation.

Though somehow, the look on Jadeite's face when he opened the door, and Ranma drove his sword into his guts to the hilt, just made the whole fiasco worthwile.

xxx

"She's been like this for the past day, my lord." Obsidian stated.

Ranma frowned as he watched Kasumi, deep bags under her eyes, flit from one half-hearted chore to the window, where she would stare out, as though expecting someone to be there, then dully return to some sort of dusting.

"I.... see. They haven't come for her yet?"

"No. Although in your absence, I was able to acquire more details... it seems that the 'fairest' referred to one Akane Tendo."

Ranma blinked slowly.

"That... half trained gorilla brat, with no control over her rage or fists? _That_ Tendo?"

"I'm afraid so."

"It's traditional to kidnap _that_, when this one was at hand?" He gestured vaguely in Kasumi's direction. "I don't believe I shall ever understand these martial artists."

"Her... 'fiery nature' is apparently quite the selling point, My lord."

Ranma snorted at the girl's berserk rages being described as 'fiery', as Obsidian continued to debrief him on the current situation. It was most irritating.

"So then... what do you expect me to do about it? I'm not exactly trained to deal with mental trauma."

"You are still human." the youma retorted politely.

Really, that was all that need be said, as it really did make him the most suited for the task.

"Oi. Girl. _Kasumi._"

It wasn't until he spoke her name that he actually got her attention, and her blank stare unnerved him slightly, which was a truly difficult feat.

"Your family has... shown no inclination to come to your rescue."

Still that vacant stare, and Ranma found himself mentally wincing for putting things so bluntly and began grasping for something, anything to say to fill the stretching silence.

"..... Until they do....."

He paused, mind still working furiously to find something to say, before he regretfully went with the best he could come up with.

"Until they do.... you are a welcomed guest in my household. You may leave and return at any time, so long as you do not return to the Tendo Dojo until they come of their own volition to reclaim you. Is that.... acceptable?"

She blinked slowly, and then it was like a switch had been thrown and suddenly she was sobbing into his chest, ruining his shirt and squeezing his pained ribs.

He would never understand people.

xxx

"Keep an eye out boy. That lowlife could realize his mistake at any minute and be back. As it happens, there's a 'kwick-ee wedding chapel' not too far from-"

"Shaddup Pops/Saotome-san!" came the dual cry of disgruntled rage.

xxx

A.N.

Yeah... that's going to stir the pot a bit. And a bit short, but no helping that.

Oh, and now you get to guess. Is the Animorph's thing going to be an integral part of the storyline, or is it just an Unexplained, Unwanted Crossover that will soon fade into obscurity in a pool of discontinuity? Or will you all think it's one, when it's really the other, or will I change things later to suit my own ends? Fufufufu....

Headgame Time.


	6. Chapter 6

"My Queen... I bring grave news."

Ranma waited patiently for Beryl to nod vaguely in his direction, granting him permission to continue.

"While on my vacation, I encountered signs of extraterrestrial footholds being put into place on another continent." Not bothering to explain how he'd gotten there in the first place, he continued. "I have since investigated more thoroughly into the matter, and it has become obvious that a large infestation has made its place in the americas. These... interlopers..."

He sneered in disgust, taking a moment to visibly compose himself for theatrical purposes.

"Filthy vermin that they are, have taken possession of numerous of _our_ humans, a slap in the face to the _true_ conquerors of this planet. They _dare_ to infest those who, by all rights, should naturally be serving us as their lords and Empress, removing them from the planet as mere clothing to hide their putrescent true forms, stealing them away from us!"

Beryl nodded impassively, his dramatics having apparently had the desired effect.

"Our operations have been extremely succesful." He stated, ignoring that, technically, it was only _his _operations that had been sending in a large, steady stream of life energy to the Dark Kingdom. Ironic, as that wasn't their primary purpose, but such details were unimportant at the moment.

"I propose that we step up our efforts! Summon Nephrite, have him work together with Jadeite to collect energy from the ignorant cattle. Summon Kunzite and Zoicite, have them select one hundred each of our finest battle youma! Let them _purge_ the scum from the face of _your_ planet, My Queen! Send those that survive whimpering back to the starred abysses that spawned them, bringing word that Earth is _ours_, and will not tolerate their trespasses."

He calmed himself from the frenzy he'd worked up in himself and the gathered youma in the court, even now shuffling in bloodthirsty anticipation.

"As for myself... simply allow me to continue to serve to the best of my ability, wherever my Queen should choose."

"I shall consider your proposal, General." Beryl said calmly, as good as confirming that she would allow it. With the Youma so enthused, she would be a fool not to.

xxx

Lord Ranma

xxx

He was correct. After conversing with Metallia, as apparently the Queen could make no decisions without the creature's input, Beryl had given the go-ahead to start formulating plans and making selections of the Youma to be involved, as well as an increase of another fifty Youma to each of the small armies. It seemed that the thing had been most incensed to learn that there was something _else_ trying to take over the world it had claimed.

It would take time, of course, for the generals to select the battle youma, having come to the correct conclusion that the ability to pass themselves off as human would be completely irrelevant, and gather enough energy to get them into top fighting form and transport them all at once out of the Dark Kingdom. At least a week, perhaps longer if Ranma was incorrect about _two_ generals being able to run rings around the fledgling senshi, if they properly worked in concert.

For the moment, the gathering was a briefing, for Ranma to hand out information on the new enemy to his fellow Generals. And Kasumi, who was serving tea and tiny little sandwich things, who nobody had bothered to reqest leave the room.

"This is a Yeerk." Ranma stated, setting a small pickle jar with what appeared at first glance to be a slug inside on the table. The other generals stared at the creature with varying measures of intrigue and disgust, and Kasumi went a sort of greenish tone when she looked at it too long.

"I'll not go into how I obtained it. Suffice to say, my ally within the group of guerilla rebels against these extraterrestrial scum was a great deal of help in that regard, as well as sending me the information I requested. As you can see, a Yeerk on its own is a vile and pathetic thing. They are parasites, body snatchers by nature, and have some degree of telepathy as they can wrench information from their host's mind as they take absolute control their body, within minutes of infestation being capable of reinserting themselves into humanity with nobody the wiser."

He shook his head.

"Remarkably effective tactics, in spite of their disgusting nature." He stated blandly. "As of now, none of the people of the americas are even aware that they are under assault, and the Yeerk infestation grows daily, like a cancerous tumor. But back to the important information. Every three days, the Yeerk must seperate from the host and return to a 'pool', where it absorbs some form of radiation dubbed 'Kandrona Rays' from a Kandrona Crystal. Without that radiation, the Yeerk dies, however it is an excruciatingly painful process for both parties, I'm told."

"I see." Kunzite stated, flipping through the gathered papers. "Then the wisest initial targets would be these pools. Destroy them, and with luck the Crystal as well, and they will starve to death."

"Indeed. However, as long as humans are infested, they must unfortunately be considered hostiles, and given no quarter. It pains me to suggest you order their death, as corpses are useless for any purpose save fertilizer, but... it will most likely be neccessary. Something must, of course, be done to ensure that the human military forces do not misinterpret the situation and force us into a battle on two fronts... it would be best to avoid the deaths of uninfested humans, if at all possible."

"Leave that to us." Kunzite replied again. "I believe I have just the thing in mind.

Kasumi continued to fill cups with tea, not exactly enthused with the war plans, but having had it thoroughly explained to her that, while they weren't exactly the 'good guys', they had been residents of this planet for millenia, and damned if they were just going to sit back and let some _foreign_ menace take hold. And she was forced to admit, the prospect of living life as a slave inside her own mind wasn't at all pleasant.

Neither, of course, was the realization that the rest of the household viewed humanity primarily as a food source much like cattle or pork, but she'd been assured that the Dark Kingdom went out of their way to avoid killing whenever possible, and was forced to admit their arguments in that regard made sense. It wasn't like they could just stop eating, after all, and she'd had the energy drain demonstrated on her, with consent, to prove that it was quite painless, and actually mildly euphoric.

"A further issue is the operations in Juuban. I'm unsure why, but the Senshi seem to have limited their patrols to only that area, as I have not once been troubled by them. However, the strike against the Yeerks will no doubt have to be visible enough that it would be vain to hope that there will be no recording devices present, and from that point it will make its way to a news medium of some sort, or perhaps several. After that, the Senshi will be rudely awakened to the fact that we _can_ focus our attentions elsewhere, and will doubtless attempt to spread themselves in an effort to counter such. Before then, however, I believe that operations outside that prefecture will be entirely safe, and will likely not require more oversight than placing a more experienced Youma in charge."

Ranma coughed, hiding his slight embarassment before he continued.

"While Nephrite and Jadeite continue their usual activities in Juuban, I suggest a couple long-term operations be held elsewhere. Utilizing the Internet, a quaint attempt to mimic the world wide data infrastructure we once had, I have come across some very.... er... _interesting_ websites. As such, I suggest they be something along the lines of these."

He removed a prototype flyer from his jacket and unrolled it, ignoring Kasumi's sudden flush. The flyer primarily showcased a Youma in a provocative pose, the image edited heavily to suggest it was merely a nubile woman in latex and a very great deal of makeup and paint.

"Hm. 'Sexy, sultry monster mega-babes'? 'Get "Drained" in private rooms'. 'Totally Private, Very Discreet, Reasonable Prices'? 'Dark Kingdom, Inc'?" Jadeite frowned. "Do Youma even _have_..?"

"Never asked, never going to ask. Doesn't matter, really." Ranma countered. "The customer gets exactly what they pay for, to be taken to a private room and drained. Anything aside from that is none of our concern, is it?"

"Personally, I like the idea." Nephrite decided. "Very ironic, and just the sort of twisted little scheme one can expect from the junior General. On top of that, an actual source of human funding might come in handy somehow."

"Well, I do try." Ranma stated cheerfully, then paused and swept all the documentation out of the way and out of sight as the doorbell rang and Kasumi rose to answer it.

"Oh My!"

xxx

Cologne had been unable to find any information on 'Five Generals'.

Looking through the Amazon histories, she had found many references to groups of four generals, and some, more scattered refences to two, three, or six generals, and even a singular note of a group of seven generals... but not a word of _five_ generals.

Frustrated, she'd turned to other sources, only to come up similarly blank, and had been at a loss until she'd caught Nabiki wondering to herself why Ranma had termed 'ki' as 'life energy'.

That, at least, had given her a further place to start, but still all the records of such were truly ancient, and only mentioned four generals, sealed along with Beryl, an Amazon queen, when she had fought off the invasion of a silver sorceress supposedly from the _moon_, of all things.

No, such silly children's tales surely held no relevance to the here and now.

xxx

Nabiki was haggard and disheveled as Kasumi ushered her in, and gratefully accepted the proferred cup of tea.

"You're a hard guy to find." She stated wryly. "Wouldn't believe what I had to go through to track this place down. That's not important though. Kasumi... you _have_ to come home." She finished desperately.

Ranma snorted.

"About time... I'd thought this thing would be settled in a matter of hours, and look how it's dragged out. Wasteful."

Nabiki ignored him, and continued talking, not realizing in her coffee-and-decent-food deprived state that it would have been better to just shut up while she was ahead.

"We've been living on takeout, the kitchen is wrecked from when Akane tried to make dinner, there hasn't been any coffee for days, there's garbage everywhere... you _have to come home_." She wailed pitifully, not seeing an unusually dark cast slowly creep over her elder sister's face. "We have to go _now_, Akane mentioned that she wanted to try making shrimp tempura, and-"

"No."

Nabiki flinched at the quiet word, as though visibly struck. Obviously, the idea that Kasumi wouldn't be happy and eager to come back with her had never occured.

"But-!"

"No, no, no, no, NO!" Kasumi shrieked right back in Nabiki's face, her long-stretched temper having apparently finally reached the breaking point as she snapped and unloaded.

"I went along with this at first because I thought it would be a fun way to spend a day or two!" She ranted, Nabiki still flinching and staggering back from the volume. "Whenever _Akane_ is kidnapped, the whole town is up in arms, running themselves ragged to the rescue, even if they have to go so far as _China_! We're within _walking distance_, and it's been a _week_, and nobody but you has even _tried_, and, and, do I not _matter?_ We're supposed to be _family_ and... am I just the _maid_ to you, that your _only_ concern that I'm gone is that it's _inconvenient for you_?"

"But Kasu-!"

"No! A thousand times, no! I'm _not_ going back now, not for anything! I wanted to be a nurse, but we couldn't afford college fees! I wanted to date, but none of you were capable of taking care of yourselves! I wanted to mourn mother and move on with my life, _but I had to take her place_! No! No more!"

"Stockholm Syndrome." Nabiki whispered dumbly. "Oh no... they've brainwashed-"

The ringing slap caught her completely off guard, and Nabiki fell right on her ass, rubbing her stinging cheek as Kasumi turned and rushed up the stairs. For his part, Ranma finished his tea before turning to the by now unwelcome guest.

"I am a man of my word." He stated. "Kasumi was a guest in my household, as she will remain for as long as she chooses. My only stipulation was that she not return to the Tendo household until such time as they came for her. That time has now come. However, she no longer wishes to return."

"You _brainwashing_-"

"No action on my part was neccessary." He countered. "Merely your own lack of action. And I can assure you, should anyone kidnap her from _us_ against her will, I have many friends who would be more than willing to drop everything immediately to come to her aid. If she wishes further education, I will arrange for it. If she wishes companionship, she is more than free to seek it. If she wishes to leave my household, I shall happily hold the door open for her. Make no mistake, she was never a prisoner."

"You'll _pay_ for this!" Nabiki snarled, wild-eyed. "I'll make you _pay_ for turning Kasumi against us!"

"Petty threats from a child, having lost its favored toy. You are welcome to make the attempt, though I do not believe you comprehend just how deep the pool you ready yourself to jump into really is. I wonder if you are as powerful a swimmer as you seem to believe?"

The ultimatum had been made, 'press things and I will crush you', but Nabiki was far beyond reason at this point, and was still snarling dire threats of vengeance as she left.

xxx

The next morning, the newspaper ran a story about a group of kidnappers who had taken hostage a local young woman's eldest sister.

Within a matter of hours, the paper had printed a retraction of the article, with a great deal of evidence presented to prove that the so called 'kidnappers' had in fact rescued the woman in question, including a recorded interview with two less-than-sober fathers, photographs of the state of the household after the 'kidnapping', and testimony from not just the kidnappers, but the woman herself, who stated within that 'Nabiki should be ashamed of herself'.

The Tendo reputation had plummeted like a stone, and Nabiki's in particular had had a wet, muddy splashdown.

The next attempt had been nowhere near so subtle, merely an all out attempt to snatch Kasumi back. Against _five_ Dark Generals, two Youma, and an enraged Kasumi's Frypan-Of-Doom, they stood no chance and quickly scurried away with their tails between their legs.

The next day, two men in important looking suits and shades approached Nabiki during school hours, one flipping through an uncomfortably thick folder with her name on it.

"Tendo Nabiki, I presume?" The other asked merely as a matter of routine, as he was holding a recent photograph of her in one hand. "You have the right to remain silent."

"Wait! What did I do!" She asked quickly, biting down the 'You have no evidence!' line as _very_ unwise and hoping that this was just an attempt to psyche her out with some thugs in suits and a bunch of blank papers.

"Extortion, racketeering, underage gambling, collection and sale of underage soft pornography... we have quite a laundry list of offenses, Ms. Tendo, and with many counts for each."

"That's... you have no proof!"

"I assure you, we have a _very_ great deal of evidence." The second said, waving the folder. "Else we wouldn't be here, and you would have been collected by regular police on mere suspicion of these charges."

"It wont! You cant! This is _his_ fault!" She snarled, losing all composure and trying to lunge past them in an attempt to flee. Their tazers put a quick stop to that line of thought, and indeed for the next few hours any thought at all.

"She didn't seem at _all_ rational. Wonder if she'll try for the insanity defense?" One of the men wondered aloud as he hefted the girl over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The other merely shrugged, opening the door of their car for the first to dump the perp in the backseat, confident that in either case, Justice would be served.

xxx

No further attempts were made to reclaim Kasumi, and information quickly came that the remaining Tendo's and Saotomes had removed themselves from the dojo property entirely to move in with Saotome's mother.

Never one to pass by a fallen enemy without giving them a good, stout kick in the ribs, Ranma began working to have the deeds to the place quietly put into Kasumi's name and put things in motion to file restraining orders against them so they couldn't even legally enter the premises. Kasumi, having had a rather nasty and vindictive streak of her own awakened by recent events, assisted happily in any way she could after only a little prodding.

It wasn't that she didn't still love her family... every bit of the situation pained her, deep inside. But she _needed_ to hurt them the way she'd been hurt by them, and if they weren't even going to _try_ to keep the place in order, then _damned_ if they could just come back after she'd fixed everything up and just sponge off of her hard work.

She'd not taken one step back onto the premises until all the papers were in her name, and with Nabiki... absent until the proper combination of bail money, owed favors, and outright bribes could be scraped together, the notification sent to Soun would sit unopened in an envelope for some time, until there was simply nothing left that he could do about it. _Then_ the first thing to be done had been for Nephrite to put up wards much like at Ranma's house, allocate a quartet of carefully selected youma to aid in the repairs and cleaning and to rebuff any attempts at intrusion by 'the ingrates', carefully siphoning off a good chunk of life energy whenever they did so, then moved into Kasumi's household himself, freeing up the wards at Ranma's to accept another youma to clean there now and again.

Operations elsewhere were going well also. The Senshi hadn't even _seen_ Nephrite yet, Jadeite had resigned himself to being senshi-bait for the foreseeable duration, and the two other facilities were steadily churning a stream of life-energy into the Dark Kingdom, whose revenues had increased something along the lines of fifteen hundred percent with the new policies, and the Senshi's complete inability to be in more than one place at the same time.

Beryl still gave the occasional counterintuitive order, which was carefully followed out, unless they were pretty sure that Beryl wasn't spying on them, in which case they were completely ignored.

And then, the Queen sealed Jadeite in Hard Thought in a fit of pique, in spite of having performed perfectly in luring the Senshi to an airport and occupying them while several other important missions went off without a hitch. He'd even gone above and beyond the line of duty, and gotten ahold of their _names_, their civilian identities, a critical piece of information if ever there was one, but simply because he'd not managed to kill them...

All of a sudden, Beryl had crossed a line without realizing it. Blasting a youma for incompetence was one thing. Doing something like this to a _General_, who'd performed his duties admirably, _flawlessly_?

The Generals remaining were suddenly forced to ask the question- 'Which of us might be next, then?' Ranma in particular was most displeased at the betrayal, and kept bringing up the possibility that the mad queen would just fry one of them for no reason someday.

No, it had become quite clear. Sooner or later, for their own safety, Beryl would have to go.

The matter remained, however, that she was _ridiculously_ powerful. Even if all the Youma in the Dark Kingdom sided with them, it would be a tough battle. If that Metallia creature got involved?

No. At this point, any overt action against Beryl would be ruthlessly crushed. The best they could do was what they already had, slipping the encased General out of the Dark Kingdom, releasing him, and hiding him at Kasumi's, now warded to be undetectable to the Dark Kingdom itself, as well as Senshi, to recover from his ordeal.

It was Ranma, again, who brought up a fascinating possibility. Why not use the Senshi against Beryl, directly? Truly, they were no match for her at this point, having only just awakened Jupiter, but... what of the prismatic crystals that Beryl had so suddenly been insistent that they hunt down? Those had some sort of connection to the Moon Queen's Silver Crystal, which was an extremely powerful artifact in and of itself.

If one of the Senshi was using _that_....

They couldn't decide what the result would be, Beryl fused with the entirety of Metallia's power, against the Senshi, armed with the moon queen's crystal. It could really go either way. What they _did_ agree on was that, even if the Senshi failed, Beryl would be weakened to a mere fraction of her power. The perfect opportunity for a coup.

The stage had been set, and suddenly the generals were playing by a different set of rules entirely, another side to the chess game in action.

First, however, the foreign interference had to be dealt with. Those Yeerk creatures could not be allowed free reign, in case their machinations interfered with the generals' plots. Fortunately enough, they had a plan for that.

xxx

The Yeerks constantly emitted a small amount of the Kandrona radiation they had to ingest to remain alive. Not much, but more than enough that any youma who could see, smell, or otherwise sense such things could easily tell whether a particular human was infested or not.

The rebels had quietly been passed word to get themselves and their families out of town on whatever excuse they could muster, and for several days before the planned assault there had been a rash of anti-yeerk grafitti being put up, sending the parasites into a frenzy of activity, making it even _more_ laughably easy to spot them.

The day of the attack, a black pedestal had been put up in the center of town, Kunzite and Zoicite standing on it with an infested, chained down and gagged human between them. Milling crowds gathered to see what this 'publicity stunt' was all about, as well as reporters, and Kunzite finally chose to begin.

"Humans! Walkers of the lands that know sunlight! I come before you today in a gesture of goodwill, a peaceful gift from our lands of eternal darkness, far beneath the ground on which you stand! I bring desperate news. You are infested! A plague of abominations from beyond the stars has taken hold in your lands, and poor, ignorant fools that you are, you have not realized that enemies walk among you, wearing your faces, using your names, hiding in plain sight! Peoples of the sunlit realms... I give you your enemy."

Zoicite removed the gag, and the man instantly started jabbering.

"You can't _do_ this! I know my rights, I'm an american citizen, and-!"

"Behold!" Kunzite interrupted, wreathing his hand in dark energy and clamping it down on the man's ear, startling him into screams with the painful process of wrenching the parasite out of the man's brain. With a sickening squelch it popped out, squirming, and Kunzite grabbed it by the tail, waving it vaguely at the crowd.

"Humanity! Behold your enemy!" He stated firmly, before dropping it to the ground, stamping the wretched thing beneath a boot.

"Hahaha..." The restrained man gibbered. "Dead... dead! It's gone, it's dead, I'm... I'm free! _I'm me!_" He ranted incoherently, before snapping his attention back to the crowd, apparently horrified as he recognized more than a few faces inside it.

"_No_! Yeerks! The Yeerks are here! I won't go back! I won't be taken again! Run! Everyone run, run and hide, or the Yeerks will-!"

The man was cut off by a dracon beam, burning a hole through his chest, and the crowd panicked, finally realizing that this _might_, after all, be more than just a publicity stunt or advertisement for a new movie.

"ATTACK!" Kunzite bellowed, having fully expected it at some point, as the ambush of Youma tearing through walls and out of the ground into the streets, rampaging through the mob, slaughtering the infested humans without so much as touching the others.

"This is OUR world, OUR planet!" Kunzite roared as a small ship uncloaked itself and he blasted it out of the air with his sorceries. "For _millenia_ we have been sealed away by that accursed silver witch, and _now_ when we have _finally_ clawed our way to freedom, to reclaim our homelands, interterrestrial swine such as yourself _dare_ to attempt to take it for your own!?"

He blasted another two bug fighters out of the air before they had the chance to fire their dracon cannons, and Zoicite dealt with a third, laughing manically.

"The Dark Kingdom will _not forgive_ this insolence!" He roared, more youma spreading out into the streets and hunting the unfortunates who had been infested down, careful to drain as much as they could as they killed, recouping their losses from being summoned here. "We are even now assaulting those filthy pools in which you breed, shattering those crystals which allow you your mockery of existence! We are a purging flame wiping this world clean of your taint, and you will find no further foothold upon our lands!"

The Blade Ship uncloaked itself above the city, raining down Dracon Beams and alien hosts to join the battle, providing a timely target as the tanks started rolling in. With a bellow of rage, Kunzite formed a gigantic, whirling black beam of energy and carved into the ship with it, suddenly and dimly recalling having done much the same against a Devestator-Class lunar heavy starship, long long ago.

The Blade Ship didn't hold up nearly so well as that one had, and fell slowly to earth in two large pieces. The battle, however, was far from over.

_Impudent earthlings!_ The visser thought-snarled at Kunzite, no longer bothering with any form of subtlety and showing himself in the body of the Andalite he had taken control of. _You put up a far more effective resistance than I would have expected, however-!_

The visser was interrupted as, with a wrenching hand motion, Kunzite mashed his skull into pulp from thirty yards away.

"Nowhere to run! Nowhere to hide! No matter where you are on our planet we will _find you_!" Kunzite howled theatrically. as the bodies piled up. "Flee! Flee from our planet, bring the tale of unconquerable Earth to your wretched masters! We did not fall to the Jurai Pirates! We did not buckle when the Silver Witch tried to take control! What are you, that you think yourself a threat!? Scum! Fly our planet as fast as you might, never return, and you may yet live! Else there shall be no quarter offered!"

The orgy of violence continued unabated until the last infested fell. Then, as one, the Youma and Generals teleported away, leaving nothing behind but a sea of corpses and a shell-shocked populace.

xxx

Next Chapter:

_"Er... first off, I'd like to thank you for granting us this interview, Mr., uh, Kunzite. And friend?"_

_"The Dark Kingdom is more than happy to allow more of the truth of ourselves to be revealed to the public. And Zoicite is my lover, actually."_

"B-But... evil is evil, right Ami? How can there be greater and lesser evil? If... If the youma and the generals aren't just hurting people because they enjoy it... if they aren't just pure evil, if they're only doing what they do to survive... I just don't understand! Doesn't that make _us_ the bad guys?"

"I'm... not sure what to tell you, Usagi."

The world isn't Monochrome?

xxx

A.N. Duh-hun! You know what's irritating? I note that, due to stuff, I might not be posting much and then _bam_. Muse hits and suddenly the chapters are flowing. Not that I'm complaining, but now I've made a liar out of myself. Yeah, anyway, Yeerks might make a minor return later on, to be thoroughly rebuffed once more, but all the ones on earth are pretty much either wrecked, or making very hasty arrangements to GTFO. Compared to the Dark Kingdom? Psh, alien slugs aint even on the danger radar.

Course, as you've seen, this _also_ is going to cause some shades-of-gray stuff when news gets to the senshi. It might just shatter their little minds.

Oh, and, yeah, Nabiki's wearing an orange jumpsuit now. Man. I don't get why everyone casts her as some master manipulator, when she is so _easy_ to work around. Seriously... give her a thousand or so years in someplace like the Dark Kingdom, and she _might_ start to get close enough to see how far away she really is from the Generals' levels of friendly backstabbery. If she doesn't get eaten along the way.

Also? Longest chapter of this story so far, looks like. You're welcome.


	7. Chapter 7

_"Er... first off, I'd like to thank you for granting us this interview, Mr., uh, Kunzite. And friend?"_

_"The Dark Kingdom is more than happy to allow more of the truth of ourselves to be revealed to the public. And Zoicite is my lover, actually."_

_"We've been together for centuries."_

_"I see." The reporter said, sensing a juicy tidbit, in spite of already having hit the mother lode of stories. "The, uh, Dark Kingdom has no problems with, er, same-gender relationships, then?"_

_"Why would we?" Kunzite answered flatly. "The vast majority of our Kingdom is composed of Youma, our allies and servants, and none of the rest of us have ever worked out the temerity to even ask about their sexual practices. Why would simple preferences of gender make any sort of difference?"_

_"Excellent point." The reporter said without really answering, noting that was going to be a BIG point in their favor with the 'alternative lifestyles'. Back to the point though, can you tell me a little about the Dark Kingdom?"_

_"I shall do you one better. I'll begin the tale at a time and place long before the Dark Kingdom was sealed away. Earth, before the fall."_

_"Once, all of earth was united under a single ruler, the King of all Mankind. Beneath him were the various lords and ladies, dividing up the earth into their own sections and cultures. We were a powerful single government. There was not much in the way of technology available to most people, as the idea of polluting our own atmosphere and destroying our ecosystems in the name of some nebulous 'progress' was simply abhorrent to us, but what there was was extremely advanced, to the point that, to an eye unused to such things, our technologies and magics were simply indistinguishable."_

_"Doubtless, what remains of it has either been worn to mere dust over the epochs, or is so painstakingly sealed away and hidden that you could never find it with the technologies available to you." Zoicite piped up, before the reporter could ask._

_"Indeed. Back to the story, however. We were a powerful government, and the unified world order no doubt worked because, in those days, Earth was not nearly so lonely as it is now. There were similar governments and peoples in place in every one of the planets of this solar system, as well as the moon, and the asteroid field that once was a planet. They, however, were a linked empire, having been conquered by the royalty of the moon, and labeled the 'Silver Millenium' by their queen, who made every effort she could to pretend that her empire was a utopia."_

_"We, however, saw the truth, and were wary of the Moon Queen, having visited those other planets and the ruins of Mau, left behind when they realized what they had gotten into and attempted to secede from the Millenium. How could we allow such to take hold of our lands, our people, having seen what we had?"_

_"She called it 'Peace'. But that term is not quite correct. Peace is when a group of peoples put aside their differences and work together, and there was no such thing as the perfect 'Peace' that the moon queen took such pride in having achieved. She claimed that she had managed it by 'cleansing' the 'evil' from her populace with her magics."_

_"Perhaps she even believed it herself. But what we saw... it was not peace. It was inhumanity. She had not cleansed 'evil'. What she had done was no more and no less than completely lobotomize every man, woman, and child of her empire that was not of noble birth. Brainless automatons, like fleshy robots, bent to her every whim!"_

_"And she wanted us to join her Millenium? To become one more floating sphere, bustling with people unable to so much have a single conscious thought of her own? Of course there was no rebellion against her authority! Her own magics removed even the barest possibility of anything but blind obedience, body and soul, to her every whim, and we swiftly discovered that even the nobility of the other planets had suffered under the magics effects, though to a lesser degree, unable to even think against the Moon Queen!"_

_"And she wanted us to take part in that? No! We could not, even the least moralistic of our number balked at the very idea! But at the same time, her armies were legion, and we so very few in comparison."_

_"And so we secretly made a pact with the beings that have since become our closest allies. The Youma. They were... the antithesis of everything that the Moon Queen's magic was. Her magics could not work any subteleties upon them... the only option was complete destruction of their bodies, or no effect whatsoever."_

_"They were, of course, anethema and abominations to the Millenium. Beings that the Moon Queen could not bring to heel? They obviously could not be suffered to live. Merely for existing, they had been marked for death."_

_"But they were perfect for our needs. In exchange for sustenance, an act of feeding that, to the ignorant Millenium, made them even MORE reviled and worthy of death, they could protect our minds from being clouded by the Silver Witch's magics, could board ships that entered our starspace with hostile intent and divert them, when our own ships were occupied elsewhere, they could PROTECT us from the Millenium."_

_"And all they wanted in exchange was to be allowed to eat, and to live in peace, not hunted or murdered simply for being what they are, when they were not needed? The bargain was more than fair to our eyes."_

_"I, I'm sorry to interrupt." The reporter said, anxiously. "But... did you just say that Youma eat PEOPLE?"_

_"NO! A thousand times no, good man. To actually eat a human... that human would have to die. We would never have made such a bargain, even in the face of overwhelming odds, if it meant we were sacrificing some of our peoples lives so the rest could retain their humanity. No, you have completely misunderstood. What Youma require for sustenance... it is difficult to explain properly. We call it life energy. I'm told some martial artists refer to it as 'ki'. The Silver Millenium considered it a person's 'soul', which is part of the reason they so hated Youma, though we very much disagreed with that label, as eating someone's soul is hardly any better than eating the person."_

_"You know, of course, that humans create a bio-electric field around themselves, simply by living. This is... something like that. Humans create more of it every day, in the process of life, and expel it uselessly to dissipate and float away in the atmosphere. It is renewable, the only lasting result of being drained of it, when done properly, is a slight fatigue that is long gone by morning, and if we didn't feed it to the Youma, we would be throwing it away uselessly anyway."_

_"Think of it like this. A starving man lives next to a man who mines for iron. As he mines, however, he brings up other precious metals and gemstones that he casts away into great heaps of offal, being uninterested in anything but the iron ore. When caught rooting through the piles of muck and filth, seeking to find something that could be used to feed himself, the owner of the mine attacks and butchers the starving man without a second thought, then hangs up the corpse on his fence to be devoured by carrion birds as a warning to other would-be 'thieves'. That is the simplest way I know of to describe the interaction between the Silver Millenium and the Youma. I'm sure you can guess which man represents which." Kunzite finished dryly._

_"Y-Yes, quite." the reporter said, polishing his glasses furiously. "But please, continue."_

_"Of course. Where was I... ah, yes. The Millenium swiftly discovered that we were not going to be quietly absorbed into their empire, and then learned that, suddenly, they could no longer bring force to bear to simply MAKE us submit. So, for a time, they left us in peace. Then, the King of Earth had a son."_

_"And not long after, the Silver Witch bore a daughter, in spite of there being no need, as she had effectively made herself all but immortal with her magics, immune to the ravages of time. I admit... we should have realized from the start what her new plan was, but while wary, we were still looking for stormclouds in the wrong direction."_

_"The princess grew, as such things go, and somehow things happened that she and the prince met. From there, a vicious cycle began. On her mothers order, the princess of the Millenium set out to seduce our beloved prince away from us, planning to conquer our world by marriage, not that we realized it for some time yet, fools that we were. She spun a snare of lies and honeyed words, drawing our prince further and further away from us with every clandestine meeting, wooing him away from all rational thought."_

_"The little seductress played her part well, and one day the prince simply left the planet, sending back an announcement that he intended to be immediately wed to her, and so join our kingdoms together in an eternal peace."_

_"It was a catastrophe. What of our people, who would soon have their minds wrenched from them? What of the Youma, who would be hunted down and slaughtered like rabid animals, simply for daring to exist? How could we have been so blind, we who were so close to the prince, who should have long since seen his folly and warned him of the dangers of trusting foreign witches?"_

_"There was no hope for it. Once the union had been sealed, there would be nothing we could do to stop the Silver Queen from taking Earth into her suffocating embrace. The only option left was to attack the Millenium, to reclaim our poor, foolish prince before he did something that he would never forgive himself for, once he realized just what it was he had done. However, in between the King giving the order, and it being carried out, something went wrong."_

_"Rather than the quick, surgical strike that had been intended... get in, collect our beloved prince, and retreat... There was all out war declared. We struck every other planet at once, and as the nobility had all left to the moon, in preparations for the 'glorious event' to come, it was pathetically easy to overrun the mindless cattle remaining there, conquer them, and put the wretched souls remaining there out of their misery. You seem troubled, sir, but I must remind you that it was war, and we truly were doing the right thing. Once a man has had his free will torn away from him so utterly, there is nothing in all the universe that can be done to give it back, and to exist in such a pathetic state, barely aware that you do, indeed, still exist? No. Anything is better than that. Death is a mercy, and in those poor souls' last moments, we were angels, every one."_

_"Then we turned ourselves to the Moon, seat of our enemies power, and arrived still hours before the marriage, that cursed union, was to take place, with no warning, and brought our war to the witch herself."_

_"It could have gone better. It could have gone far better. Countless lives were lost that day, as the nobility of the other planets were all powerful sorceresses in their own right, and the Witch was unimaginably powerful, and even now none know how our poor, foolish prince got himself caught in the crossfire. It seems however, that whatever else, the Witch's spawn really had grown to truly love him, in her own way, for the moment she saw his body she took her own life in grief. Or perhaps, she simply felt that, as the purpose of her existence was to ensnare the heart of our prince, with him dead there was no reason for her to continue to exist. We may never know."_

_"Even so, we had won, at a bitter cost. And then, the Silver Witch had the last, cruel laugh from beyond the grave with her final spell, catching us, every one of the Youma, we Generals, most loyal to the crown, and our own Queen Beryl, the cousin of our beloved prince, only remaining heir to the throne of Earth, and sealing us away in a world of eternal darkness, black as her accursed heart, hidden beneath the very earth of our own planet."_

_"And so was born the Dark Kingdom. Surely, it was the Silver Witch's intent that we die in ignomity over the long eons, killing ourselves from the boredom and admittedly dire landscape, else be rent to pieces by our own hunger-maddened allies. And indeed, the only thing that may have saved us from such a fate is that they can go an incredible amount of time before the desperate hunger becomes too much for them to bear..."_

_"But we survived. We are FREE. And we have returned, to take up our place as rulers and protectors of our world once more."_

_"I... I see. That's fascinating." The Reporter stated, having lost himself in the fantastic tale at some point and having to work for a moment to force his voice to work. "Although... you've stated that you intend to take your place as 'rulers' of the world. Do you intend to declare war upon humanity?"_

_"Of course not! As those who were once rulers of this world, why would we wish to attack our own people?" Kunzite asked, visibly confused at the question._

_"But surely, you do not believe that the countries of the world will simply step aside and allow you to take over without a fight?"_

_"Take over?" Kunzite parroted again. "Why on earth would we want that? The hassle of day to day government over minor fiefs and kingdoms by whatever name you place to them? No. You have misunderstood again. We wish to return to overall rule of the planet. Whatever systems of government that has been arranged for day to day purposes in our long absence shall remain virtually untouched, as the King allowed the Barons and other nobles to run their fiefs as they would. The purpose of unified planetary government is so that one person, or a very small group of people, can represent the entirety of the planet when meeting with the representatives of OTHER worlds. What laws and rulers hold sway over particular patches of dirt that happen to be a part of our planet are of little import, as our primary concern is in representing and defending our planet as a whole against outsiders."_

_"Then you have cause to believe that there are... for lack of a better word... aliens to be worried about?" The reporter asked cynically, seeming to have forgotten that he was speaking with a man who measured the span of his years in eons, and was one of the rulers of what had been described as a grim fairytale kingdom._

_"Indeed. You did not note the minor threat we have already purged from the americas? Or have you convinced yourself that the whole matter was mere illusions, dust and vapor, despite the interstellar craft and extraterrestrial corpses left behind? No, there are many, many worlds out there. I've no doubt that the only reason you are not familiar with the Jurai Pirates is because there was quite simply very little left of earth for them to sack and pillage after the fall, and then they left to wait until we had grown back to a viable target." He sniffed. "Disgusting little penny-ante thieves and swindlers that I recall them to be. But the rest of the extraterrestrials I'm familiar with would no doubt see them leaving earth and not coming back, and follow their lead."_

_"I see. In that... oh dear, we seem to be almost out of time on this interview." The reporter stated, wincing. "One more question then, before you go. What do you say to the allegations that Japan has levied against you, concerning sudden youma attacks, and rampant energy draining."_

_"I'm afraid they are correct. However, consider our position. W have been sealed away for quite literally innumerable millenia, our allies slowly starving to death even as we did everything we could for them. And then, suddenly, the magics holding us there were simply gone, as though they had never been. It was as though meat was suddenly being dangled over a pit of starved lions. We had to so SOMETHING, immediately. What would you have had us do? Simply wait, state our case, and ask permission before doing anything? The youma would have rebelled, flocked out of the Dark Kingdom on their own devices, and run completely rampant in their unfortunate state, possibly ending in unneccesary bloodshed and death in their eagerness. No, better to conduct such clandestine operations to gather food immediately, to dull the edges of our allies hunger, and then beg forgiveness after the fact, in our eyes."_

_"An excellent point, and thank you for your time, Mr. Kunzite."_

_"It was my pleasure."_

Around the globe, a number of people watching the live broadcast, translated into just about every language there was, slowly toppled out of their chairs.

xxx

Lord Ranma

xxx

Ranma smugly rewound the tape on which he had recorded the interview he'd 'suggested' that Kunzite give. It had been a stroke of genius, especially after the fact that they'd had no choice but to come out into the open after dealing with that little infestation.

At that point, there was no way to avoid Kunzite's face, at the very least, being all over the place as the cattle rooted about for every scrap of information they could get their hands upon.

And then the idea had come. Why not _give_ them that information? Oh, there was no doubt it was slanted somewhat in the Dark Kingdom's favor, but all the details were essentially correct. Nobody needed to know that it had been Beryl who had changed the attack plans at the last minute, for instance and 'finding' the youma that the Silver Millenium had so hated was certainly a much more palatable term than 'summoning the creatures from whatever twisted, hellish place they spawned from and binding them to the cause'.

Let the humans believe that they were just a bunch of extraterrestrials with unfortunate dietary requirements. The only people who could say otherwise had been reincarnated as barely-teenage girls, and obviously had only the most fragmented bits of their memories, as they hadn't at all recognized Jadeite, who had been the most active political go-between between their courts and the earth's.

This had certainly stirred the pot, he noted, rewinding the tape to watch it one more time before he went to collect information on how the humans had reacted.

And some more important errands.

xxx

There was an odd mood at the next Senshi meeting, though Usagi hadn't seemed to note it yet, scarfing down snacks and giggling as the other three awakened senshi sat somberly at the table. Luna was absent, having had something else to do, apparently, which upon reflection was probably a good thing. After a long, awkward moment, Ami carefully removed a tape from her sack.

"Usagi?" She asked, fiddling with it. "Do you... watch news programs at all?"

"Hm? Nah. News is so boring.... and anyway, it's not like they ever show anything _important_. It's all always 'stock prices went up and down today' and 'people are still killing each other in the middle east'." She grunted, oblivious as Ami flinched at the declaration. "I can only _wish_ that the Dark Kingdom would announce their plans over the news, you know? Then it might be worth watching, if only so we know where we have to be before hand."

Ami flinched again, but this time Usagi _did_ catch the small motion.

"Is... something wrong, Ami?"

"Usagi-chan.... you... you'll probably want to sit down for this." Ami mumbled, carefully setting up Rei's VCR player and turning the television on.

Usagi's face went through a variety of emotions, like an open book, as she watched the interview, starting with a dull shock and ranging through a wide variety of horror and disbelief.

"I didn't want to believe it myself." Ami stated. "But everything they've said... all the records I've been able to access with the Mercury Computer.... they just match up too well."

"No! This is some kind of a Dark Kingdom trick, it has to be!?" Usagi insisted.

"Usagi... haven't you ever wondered? Luna just happens to find you, just as the Dark Kingdom's seal breaks?" Makoto asked. "And then, she admits that her memories aren't all there, so all she can tell you about the Silver Millenium was that it was a wonderful, wonderful place, and how the Dark Kingdom are bad, bad people? And then one of your friends just happens to be drained by a youma, setting you completely against the Dark Kingdom right from the get-go? When you stop to look at it.... aren't there just too many coincidences?"

"No! You're wrong! Luna wouldn't lie to me, wouldn't trick me, wouldn't do anything like that!" She continued to insist frantically.

"Usagi-!" Rei started, only to be interrupted.

"NO!" Usagi yelled, tears streaming down her face, the lunar crescent flashing onto her forehead for a brief moment. "Be SILENT!"

The moment she yelled the impromptu demand, she regretted it, and sank suddenly to her knees, wide-eyed and clutching at her mouth as though she could cover up the words already spoken.

Worse was Rei, whose sigil of Mars had also flashed as the other two's attention swiftly turned to her, as her mouth continued to work for a moment before she froze entirely, her own eyes widening as the color drained slowly from her face.

As her mouth began working again, lips and tongue in rapid motion as she clutched desperately at her throat, but failed to produce anything resembling speech, or indeed any sound at all, the last stubborn doubts of their own about the whole situation died a painful death as Rei clutched at the table in shock.

"Rei!" Makoto yelped. "Are, are you all right? Can you breathe? You can, good. Just... just keep calm. You're going to be fine, you just... you just can't talk." She rambled dumbly, in a sort of horrified wonder.

The fiery senshi sent a baleful glower Usagi's way, but flinched and averted her gaze when she tried to meet it.

"I.... I didn't mean to... I just...."

"It's alright Usagi." Ami spoke gently, soothingly, desperate to keep this whole fiasco from spiraling completely out of control, uncomfortably aware that Very Bad Things could well happen if they did. "Nobody blames you. This isn't your fault. Nobody is at fault here. You couldn't have known. Just.... just please. Be very, very careful about how you phrase things. Because it seems that if you phrase something as an order, or a demand.... we have no choice but to obey."

Usagi flinched at the gentle, but still clinically detached delivery of the information, as Ami was still in a mild state of shock as well. There were several long moments of silence before Makoto spoke up again.

"I didn't sign up for this." She murmured softly. "What... what now? What will happen if we find the moon princess? What then? Will she have that same kind of power over us...? We're Senshi, soldiers... but just because Usagi is of the Moon, she... Will it be worse, if we find the princess? Usagi... you're a good person, but... what if she isn't? What sort of things could she just order us to do? Would her orders supercede yours? It seems like they would, if she's the Princess and you're just a soldier..."

Makoto stopped and shook her head.

"I... I don't know if I want to do this any more." Ami admitted sadly, following where Makoto had left off. "But... can we really just stop at this point? No matter how much we might want to... what if there are control mechanisms already in place, so that we simply _can't_? And for that matter, why were we sent ahead to reincarnate to begin with? Was all this planned out by Serenity, as a just-in-case scenario? If so... then there are almost definitely control systems, that have probably been in place since the moment we first transformed. Rei... you've never been happy with Usagi being the unofficial leader. You've been really outspoken about it from time to time. But... for all your talk, you never once made even the slightest effort to put a 'better' leader in charge."

She shook her head before continuing.

"Why? Why not? Not even one half-hearted attempt? For that matter, Makoto... you didn't particularly want to be here from the start, but once you transformed into Jupiter, and Usagi asked you again, you completely changed your mind, just based on a friendship of less than a week. Even me.... I thought it was just... some sort of natural charisma, drawing us to Usagi, and binding us together as a team against the 'bad guys', but... what if it isn't? What if it's just magic, put in place by a long dead queen of a collapsed civilization? What other bindings could be in place?"

Ami realized that her hands were trembling at the thought, and she carefully tucked them out of sight.

"I'm... forced to wonder, if things were ever so clearcut. From the beginning... was this just a struggle between greater and lesser evils?" She wondered, not bothering to even try to categorize which side was which.

"B-But... evil is evil, right Ami? How can there be greater and lesser evil? If... If the youma and the generals aren't just hurting people because they enjoy it... if they aren't just pure evil, if they're only doing what they do to survive... I just don't understand! Doesn't that make _us_ the bad guys?" Usagi rambled, a bit dazed from her clear, albeit childish, worldview being so suddenly turned on its head and shaken.

"I'm... not sure what to tell you, Usagi." Ami softly replied.

"Tch."

Ranma slid the door open, in full Dark General regalia covered by his overcoat.

"All this melancholy drama. It just makes me want to puke. Ah! None of that!" He barked, hand dropping down to his sword as the gathered Senshi, in civilian identity, responded to his sudden arrival by automatically going for their transformation devices. "You even _try_ to transform, the whole 'diplomacy' tactic goes right out the window, and I have to switch to plan B."

"And... plan B is...?" Ami asked, mouth suddenly dry. She was answered with a casual frown.

"Relax. The only reason you would have to worry about plan B is if I'm forced to use it."

She gulped, noting the threat and carefully placing both her hands on the table, where they were clearly visible to all parties. The other senshi followed her lead, having no idea that plan B was a bluff that actually only amounted to 'Run like hell, because as good a swordsman as you are, you can only get one or two of them before they transform, and when they do they'll be pissed.'

"Good. I'm actually relieved that it seems plan B won't be neccessary." He stated honestly, moving his own hand away from his weapon.

"Now. Down to business. Oh. No, first, get rid of the silver magic all over the girl's voicebox, _then_ down to business." He paused, then snorted. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

"But... how do I-?"

"Feh. You girls really do have _no_ clue, do you. It's astonishing that the Queen is so obsessed with killing you off, when you really aren't even the same level of threat as a determined kid with a pointy stick."

"We are too a threat!" Usagi insisted, perhaps still not quite comprehending the change of situation. "We've thwarted Jadeite _lots_ of times!"

"You _sure_ did, princess!" Ranma replied condescendingly. "And while Jadeite was busy playing senshi-bait, all of the operations the rest of us were in charge of went off without a hitch! You didn't even realize that they had _happened_! But don't let me rain on your parade, Tsuki-no-hime." He said, throwing a casual hint into the conversation, really hoping at least one of them would have enough brains to pick up on it.

"Allow me to phrase it in a different manner. You girls... you're a four of a kind hand of twos now, with a throwaway card. We Generals... we're five of a kind, aces high, and I'm the wild card. You just can't match up. The only reason you aren't _dead_ right now is because, Queen Beryl aside, we just don't particularly _want_ to kill you. You know what? Just listen, I don't particularly need you to talk anyway, and if you're too hopeless to figure out how to undo your own magics, I'll drop a hint before I go.

Have you ever wondered, just where Jadeite disappeared to? Did you even think about it? Just one day, he teleports away after you throw a plane at him, and the next you're suddenly dealing with Nephrite, and the focus is on recovering Rainbow Crystals rather than gathering the Life Energy we need, and you haven't seen hide or hair of him since. That doesn't seem even a bit _odd_ to you, given how stubborn and bullheaded a guy he was? Think about it. I can't tell you myself, but you should be able to work it out.

For that matter, lets talk about your bindings. To be perfectly frank, they aren't so bad. Certainly, Tsukino-hime here can pretty much order you about at any time, but hey. Your Moon Queen is dead, and unless you find the Moon Princess and she takes up the mantle of the queen and reinforces those bindings, you still have your free will. So, you'd still be stuck much as you are right now, forced to obey her every order, no matter how pointless or asinine, but you wouldn't be _happy_ about it. You could even act out, in little ways, as long as you didn't draw her attention."

Ami's mouth had opened in a surprised 'oh!' of sudden realization, and Ranma knew his work today was done.

"But it's not like that matters. What difference does it make why we're fighting the Sailor Senshi at every turn, but I'm just sitting here and gloating right now, when I could have just hunted down wherever it is you prefer to sleep, and finished things in a single night of grisly work? But yes, before I go I did promise you a hint about your little problem, and I'm a man of my word. Now think about it. How did your little accident happen in the first place? How would you... countermand such a thing?"

Ranma shrugged and turned to leave.

"In any case, I've said my piece. What you girls choose to do from here... well, that's not really my problem, is it? It's not as though you could become a threat even _if_ you could figure out why we're collecting the Rainbow Crystals, or what purpose they might have in the grand scheme of things. I'll see you around, ladies!"

xxx

Next Chapter:

"Don't you get it Usagi? They're in the same boat we are!"

Webspinner.

xxx

A.N. _holycrapfastandlong_! I stand corrected. _This_ is, so far, the longest chapter of the story, if only by a tiny margin.

Eh... not much else to say. Except wow, ridiculously long intro-to-the chapter bit, when I expected the interview to be maybe a third of that length at most, and then to continue on well after where I stopped to make up for it. Seems I kinda went off into a bit of a rant though, my bad. Still, works. Hope you enjoyed!


	8. Chapter 8

He _knew_ that person.

Mamoru Chiba clutched at his head as he watched the second-hand copy of a tape of the recent expose on the Dark Kingdom.

Kunzite... he _knew_ him. Some part of him knew the man as a friend as close, or closer than a brother, and the hint of sorrow in his voice when he spoke of his prince's betrayal, for some reason it was like an ice-cold dagger plunged right into his very heart.

But _why_? Why was that? Why did he feel that way about some stranger that he could swear he had never met before in his life, could not have known, even, given the explanation of the Dark Kingdom?

With all the other wierdness in his life, it was almost too much. Crazy dreams about a girl and formalwear, waking up in the middle of the night covered in sweat and in pain, the almost unnoticeable disappearances of roses from the small bush he'd been tending to in his apartment for years... With this, on top of everything else...

Mamoru Chiba had become quite convinced that he was slowly going mad, and couldn't even begin to work out how to make it all stop.

xxx

Lord Ranma

xxx

The meeting with the Senshi had gone _far_ better than he'd dared hope. He'd fully been prepared to, at best, have to argue the girls around to his point of view, and more realistically just drop that he wouldn't be unwilling to work out some diplomatic arrangements as he did his best to avoid being hit by magic attacks that could concievably end his long existence instantly if they connected.

What had happened was that everything had went off completely without a hitch! _Perfectly_, indeed almost _too_ well. If he wasn't so light-headed with the success right now, he'd be paranoid about wondering when the other shoe was going to drop, but it seemed that he'd struck gold with the little jaunt.

Of course, he likely owed a very great deal to that little moon-brat having a panic attack and doing something foolish. They'd been paranoid and jumping at shadows, worrying about their _bindings_, simply brimming with hormonal angst.

He snorted.

Yes, they had bindings. But they really were blowing the whole thing way out of proportion. What they had were the same bindings that had been in place on the Senshi since the office was created, binding them with a bit of loyalty to the Moon. Sure, the whole thing with that minor geas on Mars' vocal cords had likely come completely out of nowhere for them, but he _very_ much doubted that the moon-brat could reproduce such a feat without similar levels of stress being placed upon her, and while it _would_ indeed dissipate when she simply verbally countermanded the previous order, it would also have worn off inside a few days on its own, a week at the latest.

Really... they were overthinking things. The Silver Queen hadn't placed any other magical bindings on them, most likely because she simply hadn't ever so much as considered the possibility of the senshi's reincarnations doing anything _but_ exactly what she wanted them to do. Indeed, they could simply 'quit' at any time, with no ill effects, and pretend they had never been Senshi in the first place, if they so desired.

_They_ didn't have to know all that, though, and if they caught on that he'd not been _quite_ as scrupulously honest about the nature of their bindings as he could have been, he could always pull the 'whoops, looks like you're right, my mistake' card and claim that he hadn't recognized some 'subtlety' of the Silver magic that had 'degraded' through the whole being-dead-then-alive-again thing.

Besides... if they just stopped being Senshi, then he wouldn't be able to use them to his own ends, and...

There was a telltale sound of rushing air that distracted him from his thoughts, and he let loose a sigh while hurling himself out of the way of a dozen throwing knives. He'd known things had been too good to last.

And then he boggled, as Mousse dropped down into the street to point, and begin ranting, at the lightpole he'd apparently mistaken for Ranma, screaming something about 'his' Shampoo.

Wonderful. The Amazons were getting back into things. Ranma shook his head in disgust and simply walked away, leaving the obvious mental incompetent to rant for several more minutes before striking at the 'fiend' when the lightpost deigned to ignore something he'd demanded an answer for. His shriek of surprised pain was just barely audible to Ranma, still walking away at a measured pace, ignoring the rant about 'that cursed barbarian' somehow dodging him as the man zipped right past and overhead, running along the top of a fence for whatever reason.

It was simply pitiful. It seemed the boy was blind as well as simple. What a shame. Even so, if the Amazons were turning their eyes toward him again, as they likely would be sooner or later, then he'd have to think up some way to deal with them.

Hah... He hadn't had so much _fun_ in all his centuries in the Dark Kingdom as he was having now!

xxx

They'd arranged a private mail spot for things to be sent to. Every so often, a youma would teleport in, dump the envelopes that had gathered inside into a sack, then teleport back out again to deliver them to Ranma's rather more palatial, if gloomier, quarters in the Dark Kingdom.

There were already great big piles of letters expressing derogatory scorn and disbelief, and a very great deal more of simple grammatically challenged hate-mail. At least a dozen tracking devices, which would no doubt puzzle a great many people when their signal just disappeared from the map after the Youma brought them here. A very polite, but firmly worded letter from the U.S. that could basically be summed up as 'thanks for the help with that slug thing, but we'll be having none of this 'world government' nonsense', although they had recognized the 'Dark Kingdom' as a seperate country in their own right, apparently, and had decided to consider the Generals under diplomatic immunity whenever they should pass through the states.

Then some more interesting things. Letters from certain countries, suggesting that they could see their way to backing the Dark Kingdom's interest in being the representative group of earth... _if_ they helped out with some of their own problems. Tit for tat.

He'd set those seperate from the rest, most of which would simply be burned, and some few of which would actually be replied to.

After a few hours he'd sat back in disgust at the _still_ inflowing piles of correspondence and gave up, contacting Rumi, as well as a couple of her friends who were adapting remarkably well to spending most of their time in the Dark Kingdom, and set them to dividing the important things from the junk.

He needed a breath of fresh air. All of this deskwork crap was getting to him.

Walking out of the closet and into the house proper, and seeing the Amazon Matriarch and her spawn was probably not the most relaxing way to spend the rest of the day though, and he'd barely registered their presence before his dagger was out, edge set carefully against his own jugular as he stared them down.

"My my. No need for such dramatics, muku-dono-to-be." Cologne chortled. "Do you think we would attempt anything against you here, so near the heart of your stronghold, with uncountable allies mere moments away?"

"Yes." He stated flatly, dagger not budging from his throat.

"Well, at least you have infinitely more sense than that other Ranma." Cologne admitted. "But for now, at least, we've no intention of causing trouble. This is more of a.... diplomatic meeting."

"Airen too, too jumpy." Shampoo giggled, before flinching as Ranma very deliberately pressed just enough for the tiniest trickle of red to start down his neck.

"Shampoo, don't antagonize him into doing something foolish." Cologne chided. "Really though... when I first found records about you Generals, I dismissed them as fairytales and continued looking, but it seems that I was mistaken. Tell me, what do you know of Beryl?"

Ranma frowned, then glanced to the door. Sandstone and Obsidian seemed to leap out of nowhere to close and lock doors, draw shades, and 'turn on' specific privacy wards about the house, nearly causing Cologne to fall off her staff at the suddenness and prompting a soft 'Aiyah...' from Shampoo. When they had finished, he carefully sat down and placed the dagger on the table as his youma took up flanking positions beside him, watchful eyes waiting for just the slightest hint of ill-intent to use as an excuse.

"About our Queen? I know much. Knew much, rather. Unfortunately, what I know is of less and less use, as she has very slowly become less and less rational over the past dozen centuries or so, and I'm afraid that she became quite unhinged when the news was brought that our ancient enemies, whom she hated above all others, had reincarnated and were awakening even as we had begun to claw our way out of the hell their mistress had consigned us to."

"Hrm... I see. Just how 'unhinged' are we talking here?" Cologne asked carefully.

"Her most recent order was for Zoicite to fetch her a large crate full of Belgian Chocolates."

"That doesn't sound so-"

"And then destroy Belgium, and I quote, 'that none less deserving might taste of such confectionary delight'." He paused, then continued in a pained monotone. "'Ohohohoho'."

"That... is far less encouraging than I had hoped." Cologne admitted frankly.

"We ignored the second bit, and she'd forgotten about it long before we returned, fortunately enough. Sadly, our queen has become something of a danger to everything and everyone in the general area, should the mood take her. Even we, her most loyal, are not...!" He cut himself off with a sharp click of teeth before continuing. "She sealed Jadeite in _Hard Thought_, because while he performed his duty _flawlessly_, the general failed to instinctively sense her whims and go far above and beyond the scope of the assigned mission." He hissed, his near-impotent rage palpable in the rant.

"Hard Thought?" Cologne wondered, curious, and Ranma snapped back to the current state of things.

"It is... not a pleasant fate. Imagine, if you will, a fly trapped within amber. And yet, the fly lives on. Trapped, unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to feel or to use any sense except, perhaps, sight... unable even to _die_, and yet mentally linked to every other unfortunate soul deemed treasonous enough to suffer such a fate worse than death, or who simply crossed our Queen in a particularly foul mood, hearing their screaming, gnashing wails resonate throughout every fiber of your being, only dimly able to realize that you, yourself, are one of those many anguished voices, and that you will never, _ever_ be able to escape of your own volition, as your body withers away over the eons but the memory of your agony lingers forever...."

Ranma had begun to tremble slightly somewhere along the line as he recounted the specifics, Shampoo had gone extremely pale and jittery, no doubt due to an overactive imagination, and Cologne had gone wide-eyed, jaw hanging loosely. Ranma forced himself to calmness and took hold of a teacup one of his ever-present minions had offered, allowing the warmth to flow into his hands as he slowly sipped.

"Yes." He continued, in a much more subdued tone. "I knew much of our queen. But as the madness takes deeper and deeper of a hold upon her, she falls ever more rapidly into a twisted spiral, and less of it is of use with every passing moment. Whatever business you have with our Queen, it is best that you consult first with one of we Generals, any one of whom is a _thousand_ times less likely to take personal offense at you and attempt vengeance simply for blinking at the wrong time, or breathing too loudly, or not breathing loudly _enough_, or..." He cut himself off again, redirecting the conversation. "Fortunately enough, even when lucid, the Queen would never visit the Chamber of Imprisonment herself, and so it was a simple matter to remove Jadeite and smuggle him to a place where he could rest and regain his strength. Even after only a short time he is a mere shadow of what he was before, he will take months at the least to recover from the trial, and we Generals now tread exceedingly warily in the throneroom of Beryl."

He shook himself, and drained the teacup hastily.

"I hope that your unfortunate thirst for knowledge has been quenched, Amazon Elder, for I am no longer in any mood to speak of such things. If not, then I am afraid one of my senior Generals shall have to attend you, whenever they might spare a moment."

"Knowledge was not the primary reason I had come..." Cologne began, before reconsidering. "But yes. Perhaps it is best that we simply return at a later date. Do be careful, Muku-dono to be... it wouldn't do for my granddaughter to become a widow before her wedding night."

"Not that it's any of _your_ concern..." Ranma drawled right back. "But plans are already being put into motion to neutralize this internal threat. For the moment, I believe I am more than capable of surviving a few months more of paranoid days and sleepless nights, wondering if one of the two beings in the Kingdom more powerful than the Generals might take it into her head to summon me at some ungodly hour of the night to fulfill some twisted whim."

Cologne didn't much like the implication that the male underlings were working to be rid of their Amazon Queen, but understood that it was probably neccessary and left without complaint.

And with any luck, once that one had seen reason and submitted to her granddaughter's wiles, a daughter would be born, and with any luck would inherit the by-then vacant throne, restoring things to their proper order.

xxx

Avada Kedavra.

The key facet of the problem this Great Britain country, where several of the Generals dimly recalled a Senshi had been sighted for a while before disappearing not long ago, probably to come here, had set before them.

An entire _society_ of humans that had clawed their way back up to the ability to harness and use magical energies, albeit of the crudest sort, and hidden themselves away from the prying eyes of their mundane, 'muggle' cousins.... and then just stopped.

Britain had provided quite a portfolio of classified information on them with regard to their problem. The society was... offensive. Wrong. Not in that they collected their magical abilities to themselves and did not strive to serve those less fortunate, no, that was simply their right as the priviledged few, to live seperate from the huddled masses. Nor was the expected corruption a true problem, as there was almost always some level of that in any society.

It was the _stagnation_ that was offensive. One of the pictures displaying a shop indicated that it had been around since before 600 B.C., by the humans current calendar.

Over two _thousand_ years! And this society of buffoons were still working magics by waving about _sticks_ and chanting _gibberish_. The most basic, humble, and amateurish of magecrafts at best. Not a sign of any attempt to work any greater, more elegant magics, or more than the slightest hint of the technological fusions that the unified Earth had once gloried in, that even Mercury had occasionally looked towards for inspiration..! The best in that regard were a few spacial distortions in vehicles, and funny clocks and watches.

It was abhorrent to the generals poring through the information. Give any _one_ of them two thousand years and free reign, and they would have crafted an empire filled with a devoted populace, advanced so far beyond the wildest dreams of all the other humans that every little thing one of their citizens did would be considered 'magic', whether it actually was or not.

This situation... it was much the reverse, with these mages lagging behind the mundanes by far in many ways, and in their arrogance refusing to look out of their narrow little worlds to see where innovation might come.

The request wasn't to simply be rid of the society in its entirety, much as the generals might enjoy such a prospect. No, the mundane government had recieved a number of increasingly agitated reports from 'muggle-born' magic users fleeing the place, about a terrorist group, having long been thought dead, resurging into activity with the reappearance of their leader, also thought long dead. And then, a sudden cease of all those reports entirely, as suddenly nobody who entered the 'magical world's borders left again.

What Britain wanted was simply a return to the comfortable status quo. Be rid of the terrorist group, the self-styled 'Death Eaters' and their leader 'Voldemort', and the Prime Minister and Queen would happily throw in their support in getting the Dark Kingdom named a representative of a 'Unified World Government', albeit in name only.

Those two words, though, were the biggest problem. Avada Kedavra. The incantation to the most feared, most evil spell known to the terrorists, with no defense or counter and bringing instant death to any it struck.

No defense, at least, by any means available to the stickwavers. The Generals, even and especially Ranma, had enough layers of arcane protections woven into themselves that the idea of something so simple as a mere stickcrafted _deathspell_ bringing them down was ludicrous. If this society had had even a few centuries to study this curse, and had labeled it so illegal as to make the user unforgivable in the eyes of their society rather than study it in depth and find out its many, many limitations, then there was no hope for them. Such things were simple... they either worked as intended, or they failed utterly, and were easily guarded against. And even after their use, as long as any _decent_ healer got to the body before decay set in and the lingering life force drifted away for good, the victim could be revivified, none the worse for the wear after the stiffness was worked out.

Nothing at all like the Lunarian Senshi brand of magics, which tended to take into account that their major enemies were already wearing the magical equivalent of starship armor and simply counter it by pouring so much overwhelming power into every attack that it rendered those defenses a moot point, each level of attacks being at least twice as powerful as the last had been. Only Mercury's design had shown any innovation on that front, with that blinding mist spell of hers.

No, in comparison the Generals had nothing to fear from so simple a parlor trick, and were rather condescending of the simple instant, painless death that was so feared by the bumpkins.

The youma, on the other hand...

There were, of course, stratagical ways of dealing with the fact that the enemy could kill any one of the vast majority of your forces in an instant. One way would be to layer similar protections as were on the Generals over their forces. It was a time consuming, attention drawing, and expensive process though, so while Ranma decided that he would certainly be putting his two underlings forward for it, it wasn't a feasible plan. They intended to get this done with swiftly, so that they were ready for the next request when it came.

One of the Generals could just go and deal with it all solo, of course. It would be a significant amount of personal effort that none of them were particularly willing to go through, however. A solid Plan B, at the very least.

And of course, the elder Generals were always pleased to kill two birds with the same arrow.

Much the same as humanity, there was a certain amount of the youma population that simply came into existence, born, if that word could be used given they had no real knowledge of how Youma procreation worked... wrong. They would struggle for life from their first breath, pain wracking their bodies, some genetic trouble or other slowly destroying them from the inside out. This small part of the population was dubbed 'Terminals', for indeed, they seldom lived longer than a few miserable decades. The pragmatic course would have been simply to kill off all the dead weight, however, very rarely indeed, a youma or two would manage to shake off its condition somehow, and in that case would _always_ be many times more powerful than any of their simpler brethren, destined for the elite of the elite, just below the Generals themselves, and those youma they specifically favored for whatever reason.

Beryl had decided long ago that they could not afford the chance of losing those possible powerhouses, and had arranged for them to continue on the same rationed amount of life energy as all the others, continuing their agonized existence.

When the seal had broken and missions came up that would almost undoubtedly be suicide, there was _always_ a flood of volunteers from the Terminals, eager to have what they saw as inevitable deaths _mean_ something, rather than simply gasping for breath, spasming wildly, and then laying still as their bodies disintegrated. To die for a greater cause, possibly even being the key linchpin of a successful mission, rather than simply dying.

More than a few of the Youma that the Senshi had destroyed had been Terminals fortunate enough to be selected to accompany Jadeite on a distraction mission. The Queen hadn't been exactly pleased when she'd figured it out, but if she'd objected and refused to allow them to volunteer for those missions, then they would likely have simply commited a mass suicide out of spite, and so she had had little real choice in the matter.

The keywords had been 'Instant, painless death' and 'Extremely likely'. The Terminals, upon hearing them, had become like wanderers in a desert having been offered water by the bucketload. They fell all over themselves, begging to be allowed the honor of following one of the Generals into a battleground where an end to their pain would likely be tossed around like candy.

They wouldn't sacrifice the mission merely to die, of course, but the survivors would very much envy those fortunate enough to fall in battle.

xxx

It had been a few hours since Ranma had left, and the Senshi were still discussing matters amongst themselves.

"Don't you get it, Usagi?" Ami pressed, the blonde not really catching on no matter how often she explained it. "They're in the same boat we are!"

"No, I don't! If they're under magic bindings, then that interview makes no sense and contradicts reality, the Dark Kingdom is just lying. But you tell me they aren't, but they're still bound!"

"She picks _now_ to start thinking?" Rei wondered quietly, exulting in once more being able to speak.

"That's what I explained! Not all bindings are magical geases, you know. The _point_ is, for _whatever_ reason, if Queen Beryl gives any of the Generals a _direct order_, then they can't refuse to carry it out, but as long as she doesn't, they have wiggle room to interpret things as they please."

"I _still_ don't get it! What's Beryl going to do if they disobey?"

"Kill them, probably." Makoto spoke up, having thought it out a little. "I mean... after all, the disobedience would technically be treasonous, if you wanted to look at it that way, and that's just what monarchs _do_ about treason."

"_Exactly_!" Ami said, glad someone had finally caught on. "And given that Beryl is in charge of the Dark Kingdom, it can be assumed that she's more than powerful enough to kill off any of the Generals, should she have reason. In fact, she may already have... that man did mention and stress Jadeite's disappearance, and while he did seem worse for the wear when he teleported out, he wasn't in immediate danger of death. And yet, he's never once appeared after that."

"B-but why would she kill him!?" Usagi asked, wide-eyed. "I mean... he's on her side, right? And he wasn't actually a traitor or anything, right? Then why...?"

"I don't know, Usagi. But what I'm more interested in is why that person claims the Generals aren't going to kill us if they can avoid it, even though Beryl wants them to, when that's probably treason in its own right, and would leave them risking death." Makoto wondered aloud.

Ami frowned, then went white.

"Oh dear... I've thought of a possible explanation that makes all too much sense. This is mere speculation, but if I'm not very much mistaken about Jadeite's disappearance, then the Generals, once content to simply follow orders, are suddenly forced to consider their Queen as a possible threat to their survival... They can't simply rebel without opening up a large can of worms. Considering that she's most likely more powerful than them, they've probably discarded any idea of assassinations that might in any way be linked to them, so youma or simply paying their queen a visit themselves is out. Tactically speaking, the best option in a case like this..."

"It's to arrange for an enemy to deal with the toxic ally, isn't it." Rei stated grimly, having caught on due to some experience with such matters, her father being a politician.

"Hey, you got it!" A new voice interrupted, and the Senshi tensed as their second intruder of the day made an entrance, fading into view.

"Hi, kiddies. Nice ta meetcha, you can call me Marble." The grayish-green Youma spoke up, settling herself casually into a seat. "'M here because Lord Ranma couldn't stick around long hisself. Beryl doesn't always keep an eye on her pet Generals, but seeing as she might just take it into her head to look at any minute, it's best that the odds of her seein' one of 'em chatting it up with the people she hates the most in all the world, or some humans that bear a passing resemblance to those people, be kept as small as possible, you know? On the other hand, why's she gonna take the time to check up on just one random l'il Youma outta the legions? And if she does take a glance the General's way, talking to me isn't going to be at all incriminating, on the surface of it."

"Then you're a go-between, of sorts?" Ami wondered aloud.

"See? This is why everyone knows you're the smart one. I only had to spell it out for you once, and you caught on right away." Marble teased, prompting an embarrassed blush and a couple of dark looks. And one completely blank one.

"Wait, can we rewind the conversation, please?" Usagi asked. "I kinda drifted off when the monster lady said 'pet generals', and I think I might have missed something important."

Upon repeating herself twice more, in deliberately small words, Usagi had pretty much caught on to the situation and the simmering anger of the others had faded, realizing that while neither of them were 'the smart one', they at least had the dubious honor of being 'not the dumb one'.

"So you're a spy! Are you Ranma's second in command? Can I call you 'number Two'?" Usagi gushed, delighted with her interpretation of things and seeming to think she'd walked into a Bond film.

"Number what now? I told you, I'm just one of the many youma in the service of Lord Ranma. If I _were_ one of his direct subordinates, I wouldn't be here, because those two are pretty well known too by now. Ugh, I didn't come here for a rundown of Dark Kingdom politics..."

"Still, some of us may be interested in such matters." Ami pointed out. "Perhaps you could consider it small talk, before getting down to more serious business."

"Well, fair enough. I make it a point not to go out of my way to cross the whims of people who could kill me without any real expenditure of effort." Marble admitted.

"Speaking of that... you're pretty relaxed, for being where you are." Makoto noted.

"And the reason for that is 'a mouthful of highly acidic saliva' for two hundred. Sure, if you four take it into your heads to take me out right now, s'not much I can do about that. But hell, at this close of a range, I'll definitely take at least one of you girls along for the ride. That's lesson one in DK politics right there. Now back a little closer to business, you should be aware that just like you humans, youma ain't all the same, quite. Mind if I smoke, if I'm going to be here longer than I'd expected?"

Not waiting for permission, Marble tugged out a pack of cigarretes and a lighter from somewhere about her person and took a deep drag before continuing.

"Ah... Tha's th' stuff. You humans think up the _greatest_ stuff. Cigs, chocolate, booze, coffee, oral sex... I think I kinda love your species."

"I.... I'm sorry, what was that last one again?" Ami asked.

"Coffee?"

"Really? I... was sure I heard something, uh..."

"Don't worry about it, kiddo. Anyhow, us Youma ain't all got the same priority of loyalties. Oh, the loyalties themselves are the same, more or less, for the most part. The Generals, the Queen, Great Metallia, and ourselves. Just, the order of 'em gets skewed around, from youma to youma. Like me, f'r example."

Marble took another deep drag.

"My first loyalty is to Lord Ranma, General number five. Right after that, I'm loyal to yours truly. Then the other generals, in order Nephrite, Jadeite, Kunzite, then Zoicite, then the queen, an' then Great Metallia. Not got much use for self-proclaimed dark gods that ain't done anything but sit on their laurels since the sealing."

"Then-" Ami began with a reasonable, thought out question, only to be interrupted.

"Hey..." Rei wondered. "Now that I think about it... there's something of a naming convention for the generals, and 'Ranma' doesn't quite fit the mold..."

"Hey, 'struth." Marble admitted. "And the reason for that's why my loyalties are primarily to my lord alone. See, of all the Generals in the Dark Kingdom, he's the only one that didn't start out with th' position right from the get-go."

She took another drag, before leaning in conspiratorily.

"Way it's told, were a few humans what got picked up 'long with all the rest of the kingdom and got themselves sealed away with us somehow. Course, most of 'em didn't really adapt well to the abrupt shifts and ended up coming down with a slight case of 'dead', but not much to do about that. If you believe ol' Quartz, though, she found Lord Ranma as just a wee babe, wrapped up in cloth wi' his name stitched careful into a corner, and brought him t' the queen's attention. Course, there's a couple dozen other youma what claims _they_ found the Lord, an' no real way of telling which 'twas, so most take such braggin's with a touch of salt. Anyhow, he didn't have any trouble adaptin' at all, could be cause he was so young. Less than a year old when 'is presence were made public knowledge, so was maybe six months when the seal came down."

Marble took another drag and leaned back.

"Anyhow, he didn't start off as a general, or even a general in training. For the first, oh, fifty years or so, he wasn't much more than a living battery, getting regular drainings to do what he could to keep as many of us alive as possible. Well protected, taken good care of, but kinda a boring job at that. Still, before his reserves swelled up 'nough that he could keep us all just hungry, 'stead of starving to death, alongside what scraps of free-floating energy happened to make its way into the Kingdom, we'd lost at least a quarter of our number to starvation. Heh, looking at it th'right way, if he'd not been 'round, prob'ly woulda been only one outta ten youma would have survived all this time, at best, so we owe him just for that."

Marble smirked and shrugged.

"But in any case, first few centuries after gettin' sealed, everyone was 'specting it to fail just any time, and most of th' days was packed with little war games and tournaments an' such, assumin' that at any time we might be able to get back out and retake control of the world, puttin' stuff back into a comfortable order an' shoing out whoever'd been keepin' the brass' seats warm for 'em. Anyway, somehow or another, just a couple hundred years past the sealing, Ranma gets hisself put in charge of a squad of a few weedy youma that nobody else'd wanted on their teams for th' games, and damn if I know how, but in just one year he took 'em to th' biggest damn tournament there was an' won it all. First time _anyone_ thought of lookin' at him as more'n a mobile food supply. As't happens, there's a long damn story after that 'bout how he clawed his way up to bein' a new General through th' cutthroat ladder of Youma politics, but we'd be sittin' here weeks if I laid that all out, so'll just say he damn well earned the spot, an' got my respect for that."

There was a long moment of silence as the senshi digested the tale, expressions ranging through a wide gamut. Disgust and a vague horror were present when they considered that the Moon Queen had essentially botched the sealing enough to throw an _infant_ into a den of hungry wolves, and a sort of awe when they considered that he'd effectively become an alpha of the pack.

"Then... Ranma was human?" Usagi wondered quietly, lost in thought.

"'Was'? Kiddo, every last one of the generals, and th' queen herself _was_ human once, 'fore Mettallia bestowed her Dark Blessing. Lord Ranma's the only one of the bunch that still _is_ human, 'cause he didn't want to take th' personal power boost at the cost of thousands of Youma starvin' to death after he couldn't feed 'em anymore. Now as we're free, that might change, but Mettallia's whimsical at the best o' times. She might just decide she's not gonna help him out, since he declined th' offer through Beryl once already. But yeah, he's still human. Though while that makes him the technically weakest individual of the generals, he makes up for it in sheer cunning, spite, and a lot of little stuff th'others lack. So while they're all stronger... he'd be the most dangerous enemy you could make among 'em."

Marble casually finished off her cigarette and put it out on her palm, licking off the ash.

"But storytimes done now, been here too long already, back t' business. I'll be keeping an eye on you girlies for my Lord, an' dropping a few hints along th' way. Don't expect to have to stop fighting though, just because we have a little agreement. Things need to keep going pretty much as they have been... Beryl gets suspicious when th' status quo changes all of a sudden. Don't worry about killin' the youma pitted gainst' ya neither. Since a while back, we been using Terminals on missions likely to cross with you lot, and every one of them downright begged for the job." Seeing they were puzzled at the reference, Marble elaborated. "Think like Youma with cancer, of a sort. Odds are really good they're gonna die anyway, usually in screaming agony wit' blood gushing outta their pores and their guts rotting while they're still alive, you're just givin' em a quicker and cleaner way out. And lastly, might be dropping one of my Lord's little hints now and again for ya. Can't help too much, you technically being the enemy an' all, but little things, you know? For one, you."

She pointed at Ami.

"You're the one with the computer, right? Y'never thought of using it for anything but scanning for our weaknesses or whatnot? Y'think that's all it can do? Things got access to the primary servers of Mercury, in labs buried miles below th' surface. Should be all kinds of techie magic goodies for ya to drool over there. The computer will lock onto you being the Mercury Senshi and shut off most o' the protections for you, leavin' just a password. As for th' password to get in, well, can't help ya there. You'll just have to hope your past life memory stuff kicks in, I guess."

Shrugging, Marble left as she came, leaving most of the senshi dumbfounded as Ami quickly transformed and manifested the tiny laptop.

xxx

A.N.

Alrighty, it's a new cross thrown into the mix! Yeah. I can see you're enthused. Anyway, wheels keep turning, stuff keeps happening. I totally ripped off the 'Terminals' idea from someone else, because I needed something like that and hey, they fit the bill.

At some point I'm gonna have to write the sidestory of Ranma clawing his way to General, now. Meh.

Pluto will make her appearance at roughly the same time she does in canon.... that arc with the pink time-travelling joke character, I think. She will be very much Not Happy with how her final gambit turned out, but, eh, that's a ways off yet. It'll be another fine monkeywrench in the gears.

So, place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, place your bets! Which of the generals will head out to obliterate the Death Nibblers and He Who Smells Kinda Funny, and approximately how long will it take them to finish the job?


End file.
